His Next Destiny
by Tama Saga
Summary: That fateful Halloween night, there were three destined instead of two. Only one was marked. So what if you’re not the Boy Who Lived anymore? If you’ve lived as one already, you’re not going to let something like fate hold you back, right?
1. In a Strange Place

Disclaimer: I do not own the characters from Harry Potter. I write this for my amusement and for others to enjoy, not for profit.

Revision: 2/06/07

Rough Draft: 5/14/06

**His Next Destiny**

by MingShun

**Summary**: That fateful Halloween night, there were three destined instead of two. Only one was marked. So what if you're not the Boy Who Lived anymore? If you've lived as one already, you're not going to let fate hold you back, will you?

**Warnings**: Alternate Universe, Back to the Past, No Slash, H/G

"Regular Talking"  
_Alias_ (When we don't know that person's real name.)  
'_Thoughts' _

_Spells, and Memories_

**Sound Effect**

(Time)

A/N: I have an amazing story to tell you, but I'm afraid my writing skills will weaken it badly. I implore that you, the reader, help me make this story better by warning me frequently…even for the smallest spelling mistake. Reviews, e-mail, somehow…let me know.

-o-o-o-o-

Chapter 1: In a Strange Place

-o-o-o-o-

It was a crisp clear winter day. Snow gleamed brightly from atop the rooftop of an ordinary looking home. However! This isn't an ordinary home. This house, it grows as one approaches. By the time you reach the front step, you'll find that the home is now large enough to be a mansion. No, this isn't technology at work, it's magic!

Inside of this mansion was a moderately sized room, one whose thick heavy curtains prevented most of the light from entering through the large windows. In the middle of this room sat a large comfortable-looking bed, upon which laid a raven-haired boy. However, the boy looked anything but peaceful. Even as we speak, the boy was flailing wildly, and his frequent incoherent mumbling carried a depressingly dark tinge to them.

With a final jerk, we see the boy's eyes fly open as he bolted off the bed and onto the soft floor.

He crouched defensively beside the bed for a minute; trying to focus his sight and hearing in all directions as he sought out some invisible danger contained within the room. After a minute he relaxed, and, with a heavy sigh, collapsed ungracefully into a more comfortable position. He sat there quietly, waiting for his heavy panting to slow before he stood up and climbed back into bed.

Ungracefully flopping onto his back, the boy tiredly stared at the ceiling as he started to remember his dream...

_Days had passed since_ _Voldemort had fallen and Harry sat alone within his parent's ruined cottage at Godric's Hollow. He dizzily looked around. The firewhiskey in his hand was stronger than he would have liked, but it dulled his regrets. _

_An era of peace seemed to be dawning with the fall of Voldemort, but he couldn't muster the energy to be out there celebrating with the crowd or solidifying the peace with his best friends. Instead, he traveled around in a fit of depression, visiting places that held meaning to him. He took another swig of the awful liquor when a bang filled the air. Taken by surprise, Harry was unable to dodge the curse…a fatal wound…surprisingly no pain…_then he couldn't remember. Was there anything else?

Like any dream or nightmare, the details had faded away. Who had fired the curse? Why was he in Godric's Hollow anyway? All he was left with was a vague impression of dying in his nightmare. He couldn't suppress the chuckle. It was absurd how frequently he dreamed about his own death. With that thought in mind, he dismissed the nagging feeling that it might not have been a nightmare..

With a sigh, and a brief moment of thought, his thoughts turned outward as he moved to face Ron's bed.

"Alright Ron, it was hard. But all of our efforts hav-"

Harry sat up in shock. Without his glasses he had trouble distinguishing a cantaloupe from a green apple. But he immediately saw that this wasn't Ron's room at the Burrow, nor was it the cupboard under the stairs at the Dursley's. In fact, the pine green walls of the spacey room did not belong to any room that he knew or trusted.

Now alert, Harry looked around frantically for a wand. Half blind without his glasses, the search proved to be rather frustrating. After rifling through the covers, he finally directed his attention to the top of the dresser that was placed next to the bed. There!

Instead of grabbing and holding the wand aloft in triumph, he stared suspiciously at it instead. This was too convenient, something was wrong here. Harry's eyes flickered upwards where he found something else to occupy his attention for a moment. Brilliant! A pair of glasses! He wasted little time in picking them up and securing them to his face.

Immediately after putting them on, he froze as fear enveloped his body. He waited. Waited for the pain that would happen any second now, as a dangerous curse reach out and melted his face.

A minute passed without anything happening. He tentatively cracked an eye open and gingerly felt his face. Nothing felt out of place. With that thought in mind, Harry soon opened his other eye. When nothing serious happened except for clearer vision, he decided that these glasses might be safe...for now. He pulled them off anyway and waited for boils to grow on his face.

Half a minute later, the glasses were back on his face and he had stopped wondering about the potential dangers. Instead, he was curious about why the lenses seemed to be just right. Not too powerful and not too weak. Not only that, this pair also fit better than his old ones. He quickly shook his head to disperse his thoughts. Now wasn't the time to speculate about his new eyewear.

He glanced at the wand. It was different from his, a dark brown and charred in spots. However, when he looked at the wand, it didn't scream cheap or poorly cared for. His first thought was that it looked evil. It was obvious that the previous owner was a talented artist to alter the wand's appearance to have this effect. He reached over to pick it up...

…and immediately dropped it in surprise. It felt like an ordinary stick! Seizing it this time and using willpower to hold it firmly in his grip, Harry quickly revised that thought, it was worse than a stick; try as he might, he couldn't force more than a fraction of his magic through it. The wand was so incompatible that it was fighting against his magic. Biting his lip, he decided to keep it anyway. He needed a wand next to him to feel safe.

Abandoning the bed from the side opposite the dresser, Harry was presented with two obvious escape routes. Which should he use, the window or the door? The decision took little time as the answer was obvious. Determined to find answers, he covered the few steps to the nearest door, and found…a walk-in closet. Aside from a few articles of clothing and toys, it was rather empty. Undeterred, Harry backed out and headed for the next door.

Taking care to pull it open slowly, the boy cringed as it gave off several gasps anyway. He immediately darted behind the door and listened, his wand out and ready for any guards that decided to arrive and investigate the source of the noise. Finding none, he carefully pulled the door open a little more so that he could peer through. He almost cheered aloud. Instead of another closet, Harry found himself staring into the middle of a hallway this time.

Soon after, Harry found himself wandering through a cheerfully decorated hallway. '_Very strange for a dark wizard's home,'_ he distantly thought. There were several closed doors on either side of the hallway, all of which he ignored after the first one gave him a rather vicious shock.

This was strange. Aside from the doors, his captors weren't acting like he would expect. If he was a prisoner, why wasn't he restrained when he woke up? Why was a wand freely available? Where were the ones that were supposed to watch him?

He finally came to a tall staircase. It was here that he paused for a moment to listen to the ambient sounds. He heard some clinking and clattering downstairs, as if a few people were eating. The smell of warm food reinforced that assumption. Taking a chance, Harry crept downwards, holding his breath whenever a stair groaned under his weight.

At the bottom of the stairs, Harry sidled over and took a peek into the room. His eyes widened as his legs suddenly felt like jelly and his arm decided right then to give out on him. He fell forward.

The world seemed to crawl.

_'What? How? Mum? Dad? Whose girl is that?' _he numbly thought right before his shoulder struck the wall with a thump.

He saw the girl stiffen slightly, before she turned to look behind her. This prompted the two adults to stop their conversation and look questioningly at the child before they too looked in his direction.

Time sped up as he pulled back as fast as he could. It was too late though. His gut told him that they had seen him, and he didn't have much time to figure out what to do now.

He heard a chair scraping as its occupant started to stand. That was all that he needed to spur him to run for it.

The front door wasn't far, and Harry immediately chose that as his escape route. A shout of surprise was heard as he passed the opening into the dining room, but Harry ducked his head and kept running.

His furious charge ended when a sickening thud marked his heavy impact with the front door. Grasping the knob, he tried to twist it. It wouldn't budge, locked!

Whipping his wand around, Harry started to wave it, an incantation on the tip of his tongue.

_Stupefy!_

As his world went black, Harry cursed himself for not seeing the other person crouched next to the stairs.

-o-o-o-o-

_Ennervate!_

A strange tingle pulled Harry back from the land of unconsciousness. Groggily taking in his surroundings, Harry's eyes first met Sirius'. Before he could jump and hug his godfather however, his eyes snapped towards the other two familiar faces. James and Lily Potter. They were older-looking but still easy to recognize. That photo album that Hagrid had given him at the end of his first year was starting to fray around the edges given how often he looked through it in his free time.

But it was strange to see their happy expressions in the photos replaced by a frown on mum's face and an oddly neutral expression on his dad's face.

"Mum…Dad? What's wrong?" He asked in a dreamy sort of a voice.

So he was dead. While he died younger than he would have liked, at least he finished his life's mission to take out Voldemort.

His heart swelled. He was finally meeting his parents in person. Maybe Ginny was hiding around a corner and waiting for his parents to finish first before she appeared to show her anger and love. Yes, he had no doubt that she would chew him out for dying before he had a chance to li-

Harry was understandably surprised when two large hands seized the front of his shirt and yanked him forward. "Where were you going boy?" James shouted.

"James!" Lily sputtered out in surprise. The hands abruptly released him, and Harry fell backwards, incidentally knocking his head hard against a solid unyielding object.

"W…wha?" Harry stammered as stars filled his vision. He was pretty certain that if he were dead or dreaming, it wouldn't hurt this much. The world fell away as Harry struggled to understand what was going on. Who were these people? Where was he?

A single word caught his ear and he looked up to glare at his interrogator just as the man was finishing his question.

"-mort?" Harry felt a fleck of spittle landed on his cheek.

"What?" Harry asked glaring furiously at the fake who dared impersonate his father.

"Who were you going to meet?" _Sirius_ asked, taking over the questioning since his friend was too overcome with emotion to speak coherently. As he asked, he grasped Harry's left arm and raised its sleeve.

"No one?" Harry replied indignantly as he pulled his arm away. He opened his mouth to tack on an insult, but he was interrupted by a hard slap.

"You lie!" _James_ shouted. He grabbed Harry by the shoulder and started to vigorously shake the boy again. Harry felt his head knock against the hard wood twice more before the man shaking him was restrained by the woman and the man. "Listen here boy, if I hear or even see you going dark, I will kill you myself."

Harry watched guardedly as _James_ stormed out of the room, followed closely by _Lily_. There was a loud cry of rage, and something breaking in another room before silence descended on the house again.

His attention was drawn back to _Sirius_, who was crouching down, bringing the man down to Harry's eye level. "Dumbledore has given his permission for your return to Hogwarts…"

'What?' Harry mentally asked, stunned. Wasn't Dumbledore dead?

The man continued, unaware of Harry's thoughts, "…Apparently, you aren't the one responsible. This time. Hear me now when I say that you're one lucky piece o' crap. Get your trunk ready you waste of space, everyone else is leaving in an hour. Just remember, even if you don't have anyone following you, you will still be heavily watched. Anymore trouble and you will finally be expelled and on your way to Azkaban," he took a deep breath, "If you were my son, I would have sent you there long ago. Your parents are really too kind for this." The man stood up and walked off.

Harry sat there gaping in shock. Shock quickly became anger. _How dare that twat dishonor Sirius' memory like that, _he seethed as his grip on the wand tightened. After several tense moments, rational thought finally succeeded in restraining him from chasing down the git, and hexing him to oblivion. It wasn't because he was scared for his life. It was the wand in his hand. It was telling him that it didn't like him. He wouldn't be able to win. And when Harry finally met his godfather on the other side, he would be ferociously chewed out for knowingly throwing his life away for nothing.

Harry stopped glaring at the man's retreating form and looked up at the girl that had appeared to glare at him. A redhead, she was probably 8, maybe 9, wore glasses, and rather average looking. She was going to be a heartbreaker in the future though, he could tell. Nevertheless, if this was supposed to be Ginny, they really didn't do a good job on her.

"Err, hi." The boy greeted, without a grin, wondering what the girl wanted. A glob of spit smacked him in his right eye. The girl ran off immediately after seeing her spit land on his face.

-o-o-o-o-

That was shocking, and disgusting. Harry had immediately slapped a hand over the right side of his face, but it failed to hide his flabbergasted expression. A minute ticked by before his face twisted into a scowl and he stalked into the kitchen to wash the spit off.

Afterwards, he made his way upstairs, wondering why his captors were sending him to Hogwarts. It struck him that maybe they were going to present him to the newest dark lord who was currently based within the walls of Hogwarts. He immediately dismissed that thought. It was too crazy. But maybe Hogwarts was code word for the dark lord's fortress while Dumbledore was the code word for leader. He would have to be careful.

A dull headache plagued him as he traveled through the upstairs hallway. '_Too many knocks to the head,'_ he thought wanly. How did he get himself into these situations anyway?

He came upon a slightly open door. Recognition dawned on him; this was the room that he came out from earlier. Curious, he entered the room, and shivered as a chill in the room pierced his body.

This cold, it wasn't the type which a little heat could remove. No, the room reeked of loneliness. Who could possibly live in a place like this?

It took some time before the chill stopped bothering him. In that time, Harry had slowly entered the room and worked his way around the messy floor. His eyes soon landed upon an old battered trunk. Opening it, he found it almost ready to go.

_'Strange. It was almost as if the previous tenant wanted to leave as soon as possible. '_

Picking up an old broomstick that he found in the corner of the room, he placed it into the trunk before he latched the lid and claimed the trunk as his own. Perhaps it was stealing, but the weirdness and infuriating nature of this place kept him from feeling very guilty about it. Mentally declaring himself ready, he decided to take advantage of the extra time that he saved to explore the room and ponder his current situation.

It took Harry a second glance at the calendar before realizing that something was wrong with the date. If the calendar was to be believed, then today was January the third, 1993. Or at least, that's what he assumed, there was a slash through the first, the second, and a few days at the end of December. Yesterday was June the twenty-second, 1998 if he recalled correctly, and he did. It was a day to remember, and a day that he wanted to forget. Shaking his head to rid himself of a painful memory, Harry angrily wiped his eyes and walked over to the nearest window to have a look outside.

Swish! The curtains were flung open, and Harry was treated to an extraordinary sight. A blanket of white covered the ground, trees, and houses. Snow! Fred and George's _Snow Snow_ product could do this, but they rarely sold it seeing how expensive the ingredients were and how often the device failed to work – today really was January, and he was in the past! That explained why everything seemed higher, why his hands were smaller, and why he felt weaker.

Was this a dream? It's strange how much control he had here. He positioned his hand against his forearm…

Ouch! The pinch stung. No, this didn't feel like a dream. His head throbbed, reinforcing his belief.

So what about his memories from before? Had he dreamed of his victory over Voldemort? Harry shook his head at that, he was pretty certain that those wounds that he incurred were real. He gave a huff. Then an odd sort of inspiration struck him, maybe he had been given a second chance! He frowned at that. No. He couldn't be starting over from day 1. He would be at the Dursley's then, not stuck in a Death Eater's mansion.

No, he thought despondently, this probably wasn't a second chance. What was going on then?

Confused, Harry turned away from the window to look at the room. There had to be an answer in here! But where? The more he gazed at this room, the more confused he became as more questions popped up. Overwhelmed, the boy decided that he had enough for now. Besides, it was time to go. He stalked over to the trunk, only to stop halfway there.

"Bloody!" He bit out. Barefoot, Harry had accidentally stepped upon something small, and pointy. It stung. Bending down for a closer look, he came upon a small object hidden deep within the thick plushy gray carpet. Pulling it out, Harry discovered what used to be an arm. Looking back at the mess of toys he had kicked into a corner, he saw a headless figurine, resting on top, missing the arm that he was now holding in his hand.

He picked up the figurine to examine it. It used to be a toy wizard, maybe an action figure. He flipped it over. It didn't move anymore he absently noted, the damage was too great. He tried once or twice to reattach the arm. His efforts went unrewarded as the arm fell away soon after.

Dropping the arm into the pile, Harry stared at the toy wizard a little longer before looking up to gaze at the others. These toys are all broken beyond repair. Are they there to warn him?

Something must have compelled him, because he dug into the pile and uncovered a small pink diary.

A quick glance behind the cover had:

**Property of:**

And, penned underneath it  
_H.J.Potter _

He dropped the diary in surprise when he saw the initials behind the front cover. Bending down to retrieve it again, he placed it into his pocket, before grabbing his "new" trunk and leaving the mysterious room.

-o-o-o-o-

**A/N: **I need a beta reader.

Ming (underscore) shun (underscore) lin (at) yahoo (dot) com

**More Notes:**

- Harry in this story is actually fairly powerful. However, aside from knowledge, he doesn't have any special skills, such as shapeshifting or wandless magic.

- Don't expect lots of killing and death and gore. I'm not interested in explicit violence.

- Feel free to point out plot holes, or things that don't make sense. I'm trying to write a story that's entertaining, yet realistic. I've spent a fair amount of time planning the story, so it should be fine.

- Review by dragon of war:

"his eyes and ears darting wildly left and right"

How can your ears dart?

My Fix: "trying to focus his sight and hearing in all directions "

Thanks! It's not easy for me to catch these small things since my focus is all over the place. I'll try and be more cautious.


	2. To a Familiar Place

Disclaimer: I do not own the characters from Harry Potter. I write this for my amusement and for others to enjoy, not for profit.

Rough Draft – Forgot

First Revision – 2/10/06

"Regular Talking"  
_Alias_ (When we don't know that person's real name.)  
_'Thoughts'_

_Spells and Memories_

**Sound Effect**

(Time)

-o-o-o-o-

Chapter 2: To a Familiar Place

-o-o-o-o-

Harry padded out of the green and gray room and shut the door. A click told him that the door was secured and could not be pushed open anymore. He turned and continued down the hallway. Without realising it, memories from the past started to filter into his awareness.

"_What would you do if you could go back in time?" Hermione had asked, with a sly smile. They had been lazing around a few days after Harry and Hermione had freed Sirius from Azkaban. _

_Both boys blinked at Hermione's strange attitude. What was she up to?_

_Mindful of the rules of time travel, especially after their recent adventure, Harry remembered staying silent since he knew that time travel would not grant his wish. It clicked and Harry almost groaned. Hermione, he wanted to say, that's not how you make a joke. _

_Ron fell for the trap since he jokingly held out the chocolate frog that he had been munching on and claimed, "I would invent these first and make a fortune!" _

_It marked the beginning of one of Hermione and Ron's infamous rows, which Harry had quickly learned to escape from. _

The thought faded out, only to be replaced by another one…

_Another memory appeared, and he could distantly hear himself say, "What if my parents were alive?" He had asked himself this countless times, but this time, he forgot that he wasn't alone._

"_I dunno," Ron had replied as he pulled a chocolate cauldron from its wrapping. The Golden Trio were revising for the OWLs and it seemed like a good time as any to take a break. "If it's any comfort, I'm sorry mate," the red-head continued. An awkward silence descended between the two of them._

_The third member of their group had been rather quiet. The two looked over at Hermione, who had a vacant expression on her face. They waited patiently, wondering what she had to say. Her eyes finally focused and fell on Harry, "well, there are rumors that the Ministry attempted to develop a special mirror some time ago…," she started hesitantly. She gave a weak grin, "it was supposed to be a wish-seeing mirror, say your wish into the mirror and it would show it to you. In theory, the mirror searched through many worlds until it found one where your desire came true, and then it connected that world with this one and let you have a look."_

"_Worlds?" Harry closed his mouth when Ron beat him to the punch. It seems that both of them were wondering what Hermione meant by worlds._

_There was a slight pause._

"_Places which are different from this one. In one world, your parents could be alive. In another, magic might not exist, the possibilities are endless and there's a world for each one." Hermione had answered after a bit of thought._

"_Did it work?" He remembered asking, daydreaming about finding the mirror and watching what life would be like with his parents._

_Hermione shrugged, "If alternate worlds really existed, why wouldn't it work?"_

"_Where can we find it?" He had asked excitedly._

_Hermione blinked, "I'm sorry?"_

"_The mirror," he impatiently rasped out._

"…_Harry, alternate worlds are completely theoretical. Unspeakables have shown that they don't exist…the mirror wouldn't have worked." Hermione had told him sadly._

"_Oh…" _

_His disappointed voice echoed within his mind for a moment as his thoughts faded back to reality._

Harry found himself standing at the top of the stairs. He stopped thinking to readjust his grip on his wand, in case they decided to try and off him early. The wand continued to feel cold and clammy, and Harry couldn't help but feel insecure as he slowly clomped down the stairs with a large trunk in tow.

Time travel and alternate worlds, why were those memories appearing now? What was so important about these memories? Halfway down the steps, he had stopped thinking about them, as he failed to make any connections with those memories and his current situation. At the bottom of the steps, he had forgotten that he even had those memories.

Stepping off of the last step, Harry promptly glanced to the right, where he found _James_ and _Sirius_ standing in the dining room. They both turned to look at him. Neither of them looked the least bit friendly or helpful.

_James_ broke the silence, "Where's your trunk boy?"

At his demand, Harry slowly pulled the old trunk into view. He was rudely shoved aside as the two men walked up and opened it.

His anger flared up again, the tunnel vision that he gained from glaring angrily at the two keeping him from noticing the pair tense up for a moment before _James_ pulled out the broomstick and regarded it with a raised eyebrow. The _Sirius_ tapped his partner on the shoulder prompting him from his reverie and the two continued to rifle through the rest of the trunk's contents.

Harry's wand hand twitched. Before he could lift his arm fire a spell, he felt the tip of a wand press into his back. Turning around with a blank face, he was met with the sight of _Lily_ staring at him with a hooded expression on her face.

She shook her head no. Fearing her wand, Harry held himself tensely when a glowing wand suddenly appeared next to him and started to sweep itself up and down his person.

"He's clean," _Sirius_ concluded finally, pulling his wand back. _James_ nodded in agreement as he shut the trunk and tapped it twice while muttering under his breath. Harry watched in surprise as one minute the trunk was there, the next, it was gone! His broom! He stepped forward to protest, backing up soon after as a pair of wands eagerly awaited his protest.

"Missing something Harry?" _James_ asked in a saccharine tone of voice as he returned the boy's suspicious glare with one of his own.

"Everyone here?" _Sirius_ asked, breaking the glaring match between the two.

As the others replied, Harry glanced toward the door before another plan began to form. He slowly inched toward _Lily_'s holstered wand. Timing was important. Once one of them opened the front door to let them out, he needed to take advantage of the moment of distraction by seizing the carelessly guarded wand and stun the other watcher. The door-opener was next, and the unarmed woman would be the last one that he took down. But what if...

A clomping sound interrupted his planning.

_Ginny _slowly came downstairs. She didn't look happy at all, especially when she turned to glower at him.

Harry eyed the new arrival curiously as he started to modify his plans to take her into account. Surely she wasn't part of the group escorting him but he couldn't take the chance. While she appeared to be the slightly taller, he was fairly certain that he could still overpower her. But what was her purpose? Was it to make him relax his guard? Was she even a little girl? He quickly scanned her for a visible wand. There was none. 'She must have it hidden somewhere,' he guessed.

"Now everyone is," _Lily_ said from behind as _Ginny_ reached the bottom of the stairs.

_James_ picked up a pot that had been sitting on the ground. Harry knew instinctively that it was a portkey. He cursed inwardly. As he quietly lamented about how his plan had to be changed yet again, everyone waited for him to grab on. He reached out and touched the portkey lightly.

Harry felt a hand reach out and tightly clasp his fist, keeping him firmly attached to the rope.

_James_ said the command word.

There was a jerk behind his navel, and then the world blurred.

-o-o-o-o-

They reappeared in the middle of a large bustling crowd. As always, he landed badly, but no one seemed to notice. Shaking off the residual dizziness from the portkey, Harry quickly glanced at his surroundings before he was hauled off. He was trying to see where he was so that he could form an escape plan. The biggest clue was hanging from the roof nearby, a large sign emblazoned with large letters and numbers that spelled out Platform 9 ¾.

And puffing within the station was the scarlet engine that had faithfully taken him to Hogwarts five times. It should have been seven but there was one time where he skipped a year of school and another where he flew to Hogwarts with Ron in a car. Oh the trouble that they caused, he thought with a smile. A frown worked its way onto his face. But did those 17 years of his life really happen?

He already had a plan, now he had to wait.

After standing in the same spot for several minutes, Harry was beginning to get antsy. It appeared that his captors were in no hurry to move. Were they new at this? Didn't they realize that it was easy to lose their prisoner in a busy crowd?

There was a sudden shout from behind him, causing him to jump. 'Who was Simon?'

Turning, Harry watched in surprise as the wolves in sheep's clothing left their post and entered a large gathering.

'All of them,' He realized as he looked around, 'even the polyjuiced girl.'

This was what he was waiting for. Watching his captors carefully, he slowly moved backwards, putting some space as well as a few unsuspecting wizards and witches between him and the four. Finally, they were blocked from his sight by the many bodies roaming the station. He was confident that they couldn't see him as well. He quickly made his way to the Hogwarts Express, making sure to hide behind the milling wizards and witches on his way over.

That was how he found himself sitting within an empty compartment, peering discretely over the windowsill to see what was responsible for the distraction. He saw several adults trying to look over the heads of the others. The reason why was soon apparent when the conductor announced that the train was leaving soon. The crowd thinned out a little allowing him a glimpse of a dark-haired boy being manhandled by his fans while he tried to reach the train with...was that Neville?

'Wow,' Harry thought. 'I wasn't the only one that shrunk.'

After gawking at the famous boy for a moment and noting how similar he appeared to Dad and himself, Harry ducked down and waited for the train to leave.

-o-o-o-o-

"Oi, Harry, what's with you?" Came a nonchalant voice.

Harry ignored the question as he watched a large frozen lake framed by the setting sun fly by.

It egged at him for treating others so rudely, but considering those in the compartment with him, it was sort of justified. Minutes after the train departed the station, they had entered without asking permission. Nevertheless, Harry hadn't the heart to throw them out; they had arrived with a friendly face and a civil attitude.

"Potter," the same voice prodded verbally. There were whispers from the others.

Harry couldn't take it anymore and turned away from the window. "What do you mean, Malfoy?" He asked. The other boy frowned. Harry wasn't sure whether it was from his apparent rudeness, or what he had called his ex-nemesis. There was, however, no glee of triumph in his latest victory. Aside from being annoying, Draco hadn't done anything warranting Harry's harsh verbal reply. It was like kicking a puppy.

Twenty minutes ago, Harry had been surprised when a younger Malfoy led a group of Slytherins into his compartment and sat down. The fact that they were willing to join him without taunts or insults threw up a large red flag. Something was very strange about this.

Currently, Draco must have been waiting for an apology, as his frown continued to deepen. Any deeper, Harry wryly noted, and the boy's cheeks were going to fall off his face. The frown soon disappeared, replaced by a neutral look when the blonde seemed to realize something. There was a moment of silence before, "What did the blood-traitors do to you?"

"Nothing," Harry replied, his annoyance rose a few more notches. Draco seemed the same as usual, even if the relations between the two boys were a bit different. Harry turned away again letting the others know that the subject was closed.

The hand on his shoulder let Harry know that Draco wasn't willing to drop it without a fight. Shaking off the offending hand, Harry left the compartment without another word.

-o-o-o-o-

He stopped walking down the length of the train to stare outside again.

Gin would have loved to see this,' he thought as he admired the setting sun framing a dark lake in reds and oranges. If he were next to her, he would watched as the fading sunlight made her hair dance. His eyes glazed over as the positive thoughts faded away and troubled memories arose….

"_What the bloody hell were you thinking mate!" Ron shouted at the boy with a long gash on his pale face. Currently, they were hiding inside of a decrepit old building. Their escape from Riddle Manor, Voldemort's fortress, had been anything but clean. As it were, all three had barely made it out._

_Hermione laid next to the two, injured and unconscious, but her condition was stable._

_Harry turned to Ron with emotionless eyes…"Gin…" he mouthed._

_His redheaded companion shut his mouth with an audible click. Moments passed before a quiet "What about her?" came out_

"_I…I'm not sure."_

Risking his security for news, Harry soon found out that Ginny had been badly injured that night. She had not survived until the next day.

A surge of regret overwhelmed and ate at him constantly. Why? Why did those close to him always meet in tragedy? That was the reason why he pushed Ginny away, to keep her from meeting the same fate. Fat lot of good that did, he thought mournfully.

How many moments they could have had...if he had not pushed them apart?' Harry had no delusion that Ginny would have been safer with him, but if she had to die they could have spent more time together before her time was up.

After destroying Voldemort, Harry had nothing to return to. And he knew, he just knew, that as she lay there dying, Ginny greatest regret was not leaving something for him to return to when the war had finally ended. 'Well, it's payment enough,' he thought bitterly; he wasn't there in her final moments, why should she be there at his moment of victory?

Another loved one, gone. Like Sirius, this one left a gaping wound in his chest. He was positive, however, that time would not heal this wound; his regret ran too deep.

Perhaps it was a good thing that Ginny had died when she did, he thought bitterly. As he later found out, he would not have felt Ginny's immense pain if it wasn't for a soul bond that had been forming between the two.

Hermione paused here for a moment in her explanation before she quietly mentioned that if Ginny had died a year later, she would have taken Harry with her to the afterlife. One who is fully bonded cannot live long without their partner.

Harry was ripped from his melancholy when something rammed into him. He turned around angrily before freezing in place.

"Get moving you git!" the short spunky red-head demanded while glaring at him. She was dressed in the Hogwart's robes. Apparently, they were approaching Hogsmeade station.

"…Ginny?" he stammered, he didn't wait to hear the reply. "Ginny! I'm so sorry!" he babbled as he leapt at the girl, grabbed her in a tight hug, and pressed his lips to hers.

A moment passed in silence. Then the surrounding crowd started shouting and laughing wildly, breaking the moment. The girl mmphed something and started shaking, and he felt himself pushed backwards rather violently. He fell into an empty compartment.

"You…you," Ginny screeched angrily.

Harry soon found himself assaulted by a rambunctious set of boogers, his boogers to be exact.

The train finally ground to a halt. Harry was among the last to leave, having struggled with his wand before it finally decided to spit out the countercurse on the bat-bogey hex.

He left the train feeling warm, as if something that was missing was returning to him. Harry chalked the feeling up to the knowledge that he had another chance.

-o-o-o-o-

It was nighttime when the returning students entered the Entrance Hall of Hogwarts. The hungry students immediately proceeded to the Great Hall for dinner. There, they would meet the students that had stayed at Hogwarts over break.

Harry was the last one to enter, and he was greeted with an eerie silence as the normally noisy hall quieted down almost immediately. Everyone stared at him. This wasn't anything new, but it felt disconcerting all the same.

Feeling awkward, Harry made his way to the Gryffindor table. He started to take a seat before he noticed the glares from almost everyone at the table.

"This isn't your table Harry," the famous black-haired boy that he had seen at King's Cross, standing next to Neville, spoke first.

"Yeah, what's a slimy Slytherin doing near this table! Get lost!" shouted a Gryffindor that was sitting nearby; it was disheartening to see that the speaker was a younger version of Ron.

The calm broke, and the entire Gryffindor table started shouting at Harry to scat and kiss a snake. For some unknown reason, which he would soon find the answer to, the Slytherins decided to join in the battle, with their own catcalls and taunts aimed at the Gryffindors.

"Silence!" Dumbledore shouted before the brawl could degenerate into a war between the four houses, perhaps a food fight if all was well. The room quieted again. "Mr. Potter, to your table please. Slytherin, if you must know." Random chuckles broke out over that.

Harry stared hard at his mentor for a moment, there wasn't an ounce of sympathy nor was there a trace of amusement in his eyes. Dumbledore wasn't on his side? What was going on?

Hopelessly confused, Harry made his way over to the Slytherin table where two students slid out of the way to let him sit.

Harry sat there quietly; he found that he wasn't hungry tonight. Even the treacle tart for dessert tasted bland.

-o-o-o-o-

Harry stood at the entrance to the Slytherin dungeon among a gaggle of lowerclassmen. He had abandoned the table as quickly as possible, in an effort to avoid the eventual questions of his odd behavior.

He was exhausted. Starting with waking up in an unfriendly environment, then coming to Hogwarts and finally discovering that he was in Slytherin; it was confusing, worrisome, and tiring.

"Purity," a prefect said to a blank wall. A door appeared and swung open, and Harry entered the low-ceiling greenish-tinged common room with a slight amount of hesitation. '_Into the belly of the beast_,' he thought.

He was pleased to note that the upperclassmen had not arrived yet. That meant that Draco would not be able to interrogate him tonight, Harry happily noted as he hurried to the second year boys' dormitory, found his bed, laid down, and drew the curtains. That was when a rigid object in his robe pockets made itself known…

Harry pulled out the diary and read the first entry:

_Dear Diary_

_Can you believe this? A diary! Mum and Dad finally remember to get me a gift for our birthday and it's a bloody diary! Not just any diary, a pink one! Did they honestly remember or did they just find something that Mum had hidden away to give to the twerp later? I shudder to think about what will they think of next? A dress? I can't believe I'm writing in this…_

A wonky line followed that, marking the end of that entry. Harry leafed through the rest of the pages with a raised eyebrow. The rest of the diary was blank.

Short read, he wryly thought as he put the diary away and lay down to sleep. Annoying how the diary was just as unhelpful as everything else. He hoped that this nightmare would end soon, he didn't know how much more of this he could take.

-o-o-o-o-

**Observations: **  
Aside from PS. The train ticket wasn't a big part of the story. So anyway, this Harry obviously forgot that he didn't have a train ticket. So why wasn't he in trouble when he boarded the train. For that matter, who collected the tickets? My theory? It's magic! There is no mention of a conductor coming by to pick up the tickets, so I believe that once the students and faculty board, the ticket is taken magically. If you don't have a ticket, something blocks you from entering.

So what about Harry. Little did he realize...the ticket was hidden away in his trunk. He enters the train and poof, there it goes and Harry has permission to ride.

**Observations:**

Yes, Harry did notice that he had a Slytherin crest on his robes, but if you went to the Gryffindor table for 6 years, which table would you go to first when you're returning for another year?

**A/N:**  
I wonder whether it was a good idea to heap in the flashbacks of time and space. Ah well, pointless drivel is fun too if done wisely. Sigh, this is revision one, but I need a second revision to improve the last two scenes as well as tweak the atmosphere to show Harry's confusion throughout the chapter.

Explanations:

- Kudos to Harry for stealing Ginny's first kiss

- Harry should be rather confused throughout the chapter. I can't seem to get the right atmosphere without writing the next chapter though.

Betaed by MingShun

I need a beta.


	3. A Day at Hogwarts

Rough Draft – 1/20/07

First Revision – N/A

Disclaimer: I do not own the characters from Harry Potter. I write this for my amusement and for others to enjoy, not for profit.

A/N: Please let me know if the number of He's or I's are affecting the quality of this chapter.

**His Next Destiny**

by MingShun

-o-o-o-o-

Chapter 3: A Day at Hogwarts

-o-o-o-o-

He twitched once before jerking awake and upright. For once, he had been blessed with a dreamless sleep, the nightmares held at bay by some unknown force. He did not, however, wake up with a smile. Instead, a feeling of unease and wariness pervaded his very being.

Today was not going to be a good day, Harry predicted with a sigh. What he wouldn't give for seer abilities. The ability to make wrong predictions WITH exceptional confidence would be such a godsend right now.

After a few more moments thinking about his bad luck, he finally regained enough of his wits to take in his surroundings...

...there was a rumpled dark green cover draped over his body. A silver shimmering curtain shielded him from the outside world. A slight peek outside revealed the stone blocks of an ancient structure. And it reeked of magic in the air...

...He was in Hogwarts, and it wasn't hard to guess which house. Mechanically reaching for the pillow behind him, he brought it to his face and moaned loudly into it. It looked like he was still…here, for lack of a better word.

For a brief moment, he entertained the thought of going to Dumbledore for help, but a memory of last night and Dumbledore's unfriendly gaze popped up. No, he wasn't going to get any help from his old mentor.

Not willing to find out what could possibly go wrong, Harry fell backwards as he made a silent resolution to stay in bed today. It might be childish and he would be punished later, but he was 12 now, how mature did he need to be?

That was when there were footsteps from outside of his bed. Without fanfare, the curtains protecting his privacy were ripped away.

"Go away" he shouted from under the fat pillow.

"Get up Potter," came the voice of his tormentor. "You're going to breakfast."

"No I'm not," Harry disagreed loudly as he stuck to his resolution. A moment later, he found himself jerked out of bed and floating through the air. One hand holding the pillow firmly in place, Harry muttered the countercharm as he waved his other hand, but nothing happened. Since he wasn't holding his wand that was to be expected. Pulling the pillow off of his face in frustration, he was greeted to the unwelcome sight of Draco Malfoy. Ugh, not even five minutes into the day, and his prediction was already coming true.

He couldn't help it, he started to laugh.

Draco stared at the obviously daft boy in confusion before, with a flick, he cancelled the floating charm.

There was a thud and a short gasp. Regaining his senses, Harry sat up from his tumble and glared at the smirking blonde boy. He could throttle the blonde boy, he really could. However, Malfoy's stance conjured images in his mind, a battle between Malfoy aged five years and him, also five years older. It wasn't an epic battle seeing how one of them had to fight unarmed, but the situation was so similar that even if this wasn't wasn't the same Malfoy, he was reluctant to throttle the other without a wand in hand for backup.

"We'll be waiting for you upstairs, Potter." Draco snidely commented before stepping out of the room.

_'Yes, today is off to a great start_,' Harry glumly thought as he picked himself up from off the ground. He stared mournfully at the open curtains and inviting bed before he turned around and left the room.

-o-o-o-o-

It took Harry a good bit of time, several dorm rooms, and the common room before he found the bathroom. Stepping around Crabbe, Harry entered the bathroom and...

...stared into the shower room. Of course, there was the normal gunk that one would find in any shower, but that was it. No slimy trails or disgusting creatures wandering amongst bloody entrails. The silver and green patterned tiling lacked the off-color stain of something potentially gross. He was disappointed to say the least...it was relieving to see that the bathroom obviously wasn't crawling with snakes and covered with demonic runes, but where was Ron with the sickle that he now owed him?

Stepping away from the showers, he raised his wand and proceeded to use magic to clean himself off. 'Hey', he muttered to himself, 'even if the shower was normal looking enough, Malfoy was one of the last few to use it...'

Crabbe was standing by the door when a fresher looking Harry stepped out of the bathroom. Harry walked past him again.

And then Harry went and got himself lost again. '_Bloody Fantastic.'_ When he finally found the exit to the Slytherin dungeon after searching through what he thought was the common room, twice, he turned around to glare at the oaf behind him.

"Alright, what are you up to?" he demanded. He had no idea when the large boy began, but Crabbe had been following him for some time now. Breakfast had already started and Harry was fairly certain that Crabbe wouldn't normally miss a breakfast for the fun of it.

The large boy merely shrugged, before brushing past Harry and heading up the stairs. Before he followed, Harry had a vague thought that the large oaf trekking upwards was Malfoy's guarantee that he would arrive in the Dining Hall before breakfast was over. Funny, he was pretty certain that he could turn around and run off without Malfoy's bodyguard noticing. Blimey, maybe he should holler that he was attempting to escape too. He finally decided not to do it, he was hungry.

-o-o-o-o-

The Dining Hall was quite crowded and filled with hustle and bustle from students. Crazily enough, some were eager to begin schooling he thought glancing at the Gryffindor tables where a bushy haired girl was frantically reading through a large textbook.

Harry found himself an open spot at the Slytherin table, while Crabbe took up his usual position next to Malfoy. He was uncomfortably aware that the other Slytherins had ceased their conversations to stare at him. His reply was to ignore them in favor of slowly heaping a pile of bacon and eggs onto his plate. Conversation resumed again.

"My parents gave us a new set of brooms, Nimbus 2001s. We played Quidditch with them" Zabini bragged, breaking the silence.

"My parents also got me a new broom. It's not as fancy but it's not the broom that wins the game but the rider," Nott replied.

"You barbarians don't understand the value of a good book,"

"A book? I don't suppose you received one for Christmas have you?"

"As a matter of fact, I have. _100 Legal Curses to use on your enemies," _

"I've read that book. I especially liked the gut-spilling curse. Can you imagine the look on their faces when you use that curse on them?"

Harry choked slightly on his breakfast when he heard that. Weren't these kids a little too young to know about spells like those?

His reaction drew the attention of the others. "How about you Harry, what did you receive?"

"I uh...don't remember."

"It must be bad if you conveniently forgot what you received."

"I bet his parents sent him a lump of coal again,"

Harry was indignant, "They wouldn't do that," he defended.

"They did it last year. Speaking of which, why do you care so much about a worthless piece of rock?"

Harry opened his mouth before closing it again. Didn't they know that lumps of coal were often sent as jokes or insults? Must be a muggle thing then.

"Looks like he still doesn't want to say. I can't believe this, those imbecile parents of his are ruining another respectable Slytherin."

"Pretty soon he'll be kissing Dumbledore's arse like all the other muggle lovers,"

"That's disgusting," someone shouted. The others nodded in agreement.

Harry chose to remain silent for the moment.

"What are we worried about? The Heir will deal with those pests soon,"

_'The Heir? Who are they talking about?'_

A chime sounded, signaling the end of breakfast and the beginning of classes. While it ended this conversation, Harry was certain that this was far from over.

As he stood up to leave with the others, he paused as he realized something. He didn't know what class he had next. "What class do we have next?" he demanded rudely.

"He talks," someone sarcastically commented.

"That's right, it's been a while since you were here hasn't it?" Blaise asked.

_'Didn't the students' Christmas break end yesterday? Why was Blaise asking double checking the facts? Was he gone for longer?'_

He quickly filed this small piece of information away as Draco continued where Zabini left off, "All of us are going to Transfiguration."

"All of us?"

They looked at him strangely. He was pretty certain they didn't quite understand what he was asking.

"All of us have Transfiguration next," someone impatiently repeated as the rest of the group began to break away.

It was then that Harry remembered, extracurricular courses didn't come into play until third year. For now, all of the younger students had classes with the rest of their housemates.

"Oh, sorry. I was confused for a moment there." He quietly said. There were a few curious looks, but the rest were already making their way towards the Transfiguration classroom.

-o-o-o-o-

"Class, today we will continue to transfigure doves into gloves. As you may recall, this task builds upon the knowledge gained when we transfigured mice to mittens. You will find it difficult to accomplish this transfiguration if you lack the knowledge and practice gained from our previous exercise."

Harry winced internally when she paused for a moment to look pointedly at him. At least, he was fairly certain she was looking pointedly at him. There was no one seated behind him after all.

With that, Professor McGonagall swished her wand and with an incantation proceeded to demonstrate the transformation to the class. After a rather interesting – so what if he forgot, it had been a few years already – explanation of the theory behind the transformation, she stopped lecturing and started walking around the classroom observing her students' attempts as she began her practical session.

The raven haired boy himself slowly gave his wand a few flicks and swishes before he attempted to change the white tightly bound dove. He could feel the wand channeling his magic, but it felt like shoving a marshmallow down a drinking straw. His attempt ended with a dismal failure. The dove was still there, unchanged, and cooing mockingly at him. The bloody wand was still fighting him! Angrily, he forced his magic into the wand on his second attempt.

There was a gasp, prompting the entire class to stop. Harry made an uncomfortable glance around the room and observed that the rest of the class were displaying varying degrees of shock at his transfiguration attempt.

What was the problem? A small glove was sitting in front of him. It had a few feathers attached to the fingers, but there wasn't anything remarkable about it. What was so surprising about it?

"Mr. Potter, see me after class," Professor McGonagall finally ordered after a moment of silence. He cursed under his breath, the first day back and he was already in trouble. At her sharp command the class started moving again, and the rest of class continued without further mishap, although several of his classmates came up to him and badgered him for help on their project. He tried the best that he could to help them, but McGonagall's sharp eye limited his movement. He finally started to turn them away, afraid to land in further trouble.

The chime finally sounded, signaling that class was over. As the other students filed out, Harry walked up to the front desk where his Professor was seated.

"Professor, I..."

"Mr. Potter," McGonagall interrupted, and, with a swish of her wand, conjured a mouse. "I would like to see you transfigure this mouse into a mitten."

He looked at the mouse in confusion. It returned his look with a blank expression of its own. Taking a moment to recall the incantation, he waved his wand. He grinned upon seeing the requested object sitting on top of McGonagall's desk. A bit coarse, but much better quality than the glove he created in class.

"Excellent!" the normally stern professor said with a small smile. She looked into the raven haired boy's eyes, "You are aware that you have not been in class for two months, correct?"

He could only nod at that, matching the information to an odd tidbit filed away earlier. So he really had been out of Hogwarts since before break. Why? He quickly stored his train of thought away to listen to what Mcgonagall had to say.

"I had been worried that you would be far enough behind by now that I would need to hold you back for a year. However, your demonstration today has shown me that your parents have done a marvelous job in keeping you up to date with the coursework that you missed. Please thank James for me.

In addition, please see me after class tomorrow. Until then, I will be lightening your make-up work seeing how your current progress was significantly better than I had hoped. Dismissed."

With a thank you to the Professor, Harry left the Transfiguration classroom. Once outside, he gave a small sigh of relief. It might have worked out in the end, but next time, he needed to hold back a little to avoid getting in trouble like this again.

-o-o-o-o-

And that was when he froze as a thought occurred to him. Having been kept after class, he had no clue where he had to go for his next class, since none of the other Slytherins had waited for him.

His mind was taken off his worries when he someone bumped roughly into him.

Turning around quickly, he was greeted to the backside of a short redhead that quickly disappeared into the crowd. Ginny...

He quickly shook his head to remove the dullness that had overcome his senses. He shouldn't be thinking about her. Even with another chance, it still hurt too much right now. He quickly focused his mental thoughts on a solution for his current predicament. It soon came to him, a trunk. They might contain one. After all, he reasoned, where else would a timetable go once a student learned a schedule?

With that, he entered several hidden passages as he made his way towards the Slytherin dungeon. The crowds were thinning out, it was best not to be caught in the hallways between classes.

He finally stopped in front of a blank wall.

"Purity," he said in a mocking tone.

Without so much as a sound, the entrance to the Slytherin common room appeared in front of him, granting him access to the Slytherin dormitories.

After losing his way once again, Harry finally entered the deserted second-year boy's dormitory. He glanced around, looking at all of the available trunks that he could rifle through. His eyes fell upon the trunk lying at the foot of his bed. The one that he had brought to Hogwarts. Best to check that one first, it wasn't trapped last time he checked. It opened easily, and buried under the first layer of clothes was a timetable with a green frame and silver face. A Slytherin timetable. Success!

He frowned as he looked at it, _H. J. Potter_ was written next to _Name_. Was this coincidence? Maybe, he concluded, the timetables magically fit themselves to the user. So if Ron were to pick up this timetable, R. B. Weasley would appear. Looking further down the parchment, Harry quickly learned that Charms was next. He didn't need a time spell to know he was late.

He started to stand up and leave before he glanced down at the open trunk. Now that he thought about it, he hadn't actually looked through the contents of this trunk yet. Even if he went to class, he would receive a detention anyway. So wasn't now as good a time as any to see what he had available?

He sat back down and began to rummage through the contents of the trunk. Clothes, books, some candy – surprisingly the kinds that he liked -...he started to get an uneasy feeling as he continued to look. While he had discovered this trunk by accident, the contents of this trunk were...not. Now that he thought about it, he hadn't needed to resize the robes contained within this trunk. He gave the one that he was wearing a slight tug on the sleeve. It fit perfectly fine. He hadn't needed to borrow books because the ones that he needed were already inside of this trunk...

...and the timetable. Addressed to H. J. Potter. Those didn't magically change their appearance based on the one holding them, did they?

He felt sick. The trunk that he had stolen was not. It was his. He was a Slytherin.

He shot up in determination. He was a Gryffindor!

He renewed his cataloguing with renewed vigor, desperately seeking some sort of proof to signify that his fears were unfounded and that this was all just coincidence. He couldn't possibly belong to this world, could he? Where were his memories?

Near the middle, he came upon an old newspaper. Curious, he started to browse through it.

_Daily Prophet November 1, 1981_

_You-Know-Who Defeated_

_After a decade of darkness, the light has finally prevailed with the defeat of You-Know-Who at the hands of the Simon Edward Potter. _

_The son of James and Lily nee Evans Potter, this one-year-old along with his twin brother, Harry, were left in the nursery last night when Voldemort suddenly struck Godric's Hollow, the town where the Potter's home had been hidden under the Fidelius Charm. Rose, Simon's maternal grandparent, was inside watching over the two children while the parents were away attending a ministry function. Unfortunately, Voldemort had claimed her life before he was defeated. Her body was found inside of the nursery room, resting between Simon and a pile of ashes. She had heroically stood up against You-Know-Who until the very end._

Harry looked up from the newspaper to think about what he had just read. Bloody hell, where was he?

-o-o-o-o-

So Mum and Dad survived because of his grandparent. '_This is unfair,'_ he viciously thought. Then he deflated, _'maybe it was for the best.' H_e struggled to find any valid arguments to support that claim, but his mind came up blank.

A low grumble pulled him from his thoughts. His stomach was growling. He picked up the wand lying next to him and gave it a slight sweep.

_Tempus_

11:35. Charms was ending soon. It was almost time for Lunch. He stared at the beckoning trunk for a moment before he started to return the items that he had removed. Right now, he did not want to continue exploring the shoddy trunk. His mind had enough think about already.

Harry never made it to the Great Hall. Halfway there, someone decided to block his path. Looking up to identify the obstacle, Harry soon discovered that it wasn't a single person but a small crowd. All of them had red hair and a grim face. His protest died in his throat since they had a number of wands pointed at him, and three of them knew higher level spells.

Ron and Ginny broke from the group and stepped forward to confront him.

"What's this about?" Harry asked while giving a forced smile in an attempt to hide his unease.

"Slimy Slytherin. You stole our sister's first kiss," Ron shouted. Ginny's expression morphed from the red of anger to the pale white of mortification.

"That wasn't my first kiss!" She shouted in outrage.

"It wasn't?" Ron asked, turning equally white. The other Weasley boys also started to stare curiously at Ginny. His face reddened again as he rounded on her, "who was it then?"

It was rather embarrassing watching the two bicker like that, but Harry took advantage of the distraction to step backwards. Before he had a chance to turn around and run, something pointy started to poke him in the small of his back.

Great...was his last thought before there was a shout. Blackness overwhelmed him as his body started to go limp.

-o-o-o-o-

Harry's groggy eyes opened to take in the pristine white of the hospital wing. It took a moment before he could recall what he was doing in here, but when it did, an annoyed thought popped to the forefront of his mind.

He frowned as he thought about how the supposed Gryffindors of this world seemed to prefer shooting spells into someone's backside. He quickly reeled in his annoyance as another thought occurred to him. This should not do. Surprise or not, he should have been able to defend himself anyway.

"Glad to see you are awake Mr. Potter," came a voice that he knew rather well. It was from a younger Madame Pomfrey. It was strange hearing her greeting. There was a coldness in her normally friendly voice.

"What time is it?" the bedridden boy mumbled out.

"10 in the evening," came the crisp reply. "Now if you'll excuse me Mr. Potter, I have other students to attend to. You are well enough to leave."

It was strange to hear such a professional tone coming from the normally friendly hospital matron. Sensing the dismissal and eager to leave, Harry crawled off of the cot to leave despite the odd pain plaguing his joints and limbs. It seems that Poppy wasn't as thorough as she normally would be.

As he turned to leave, he was met with a strange sight, three unmoving students, eyes wide open with a glassy gaze. Harry had seen this before, and old memories filtered to the surface.

These students, they were petrified.

The Basilisk. The Chamber of Secrets.

Oh my god. Ginny...

...He had to get that diary away from her. But, how?

His anguish quickly disappeared when he spotted the petrified form of Mrs. Norris. He blanched and unclenched his hands. Then he clenched them one more time just to make sure. A frantic search through his pockets later, he groaned as his thoughts were proven true; Madame Pomfrey had not given him a pass. It was past curfew too. He was tired, sore, and hungry. Now this? The last thought in his mind before the first member of the night watch, Filch, started to chase him: The ferret was going to pay for pulling him out of bed today.

-o-o-o-o-

A/N

It occurred to me that my Harry is sarcastically humorous. I guess living through one war-torn battlefield can do that to you.

I do the betaing myself. I don't like it because I make the same mistakes repeatedly and it takes up a significant amount of time. Anyone willing to help? I'm not going to shove the whole workload on you because it's my story. But I need you to offer tips and advice. You also need to remind me to add your name.


	4. Saving the One You Loved

Disclaimer: I do not own the characters from Harry Potter. I write this for my amusement and for others to enjoy, not for profit.

A/N: This chapter is one of the reasons why I wanted to write this story. The genre of this chapter is…Adventure!

"Regular Talking"  
_'Thoughts'  
Spells  
_**Sound Effect  
**(Time)

**His Next Destiny**

by MingShun

this chapter briefly looked over by Smith119.

-o-o-o-o-

Chapter 4: Saving the One you Loved

-o-o-o-o-

It was quiet in the second year boys' dorm. Silver curtains were drawn as the majority of them were already sleeping when Harry quietly staggered in.

Settling himself down on the side of his bed, he struggled to regain his breath from the midnight's escapade. After escaping from Filch's grasp, Harry found himself dodging Snape as well. Surprising, considering his current house affiliation, but not unexpected. If there was one constant that Harry believed, Snape wasn't going to be fair to him no matter what house he was in. Okay, maybe one of several constants, he darkly muttered...misfortune always seemed to be around the corner as well.

After struggling past Snape he found himself dogged again by a surprisingly persistent Filch. It was his extensive knowledge of the secret passageways of Hogwarts that finally saved him. He had managed to escape the caretaker's grasp when he found a passageway that his pursuer didn't know about.

He wasn't worried about being spotted. If questioned tomorrow, he would just reply that he had no idea what they were talking about, he was sleeping at that time. As long as it wasn't Dumbledore or Snape, he would have no trouble convincing them of that lie.

But...

"If only I had the map!" he exasperatedly sighed as he thought of the trouble that the Marauder's map could have helped him avoid.

"What map?" came a sleepy voice. Harry immediately sealed his mouth and froze in place.

"What map?" the voice persisted.

Harry remained quiet. After hearing the same question a third time, the curious owner of the voice fell silent once again. Perhaps dismissing it as his imagination. At least, Harry hoped so. Pulling his feet up from the foot of his bed, he carefully closed the curtains and laid down to sleep.

_'The map!' _ He realized as he quickly sat up again. If he had the map, he could track Ginny's position. He would be able to sneak into her dorm when she wasn't there.

But where was it?

He could only think of two places: in Filch's office or in the possession of the Weasley twins. Knowing how often the Weasley twins were in Filch's office, Harry quickly crossed Filch's office off of the list of places to search.

So if the Weasley twins had it, where would it be?

"Where...where...where...whre...were...w-" he repeated in his head as his thoughts became more and more fuzzy. Before long, they had derailed and he was fast asleep.

-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-

The owl's began soaring overhead as they began delivering packages to the students.

A tawny owl landed in front of Simon Henry Potter, the Boy-Who-Lived. Unlike the other owls, this one was delivering a letter from home.

Simon picked it up and read about how Rose was recovering, how Mum had to beat some sense into Dad when he had the crazy idea to run for Minister of Magic. They missed him, hope he wrote back soon, and try to talk some sense into his twin.

As he bit into a juicy looking muffin, he decided to write back after he finished breakfast. As for Harry...he looked at the Slytherin table. Harry hadn't come in yet. Maybe later then.

-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-

Today was going to be just as bad as the last one, he realized as his eyes slowly opened. Surprisingly, no one bothered to wake him from his slumber this time. Pulling his wand from off the dresser, he gave it a swish while mumbling...

_Tempus,_

The spell dimly appeared, revealing: _Tuesday, January 5__th__, 8:26AM. _Breakfast had already started.

After cleaning up, he arrived in the Great Hall for breakfast. There was small talk going on at the Slytherin table when he arrived. There were a few scattered greetings, to which he dutifully returned. He listened in on the conversation that was occurring.

"Any further news about the heir?"

"Not since a month ago."

"That's far too long"

"Aye, if I were the heir, there would be attacks everyday. Look at those mudbloods laughing. Pretty soon they'll forget how fearful they were before the break."

"Maybe the heir is waiting for that, so his next strike will be more devastating."

"Waiting for them to let down their guard?"

"Yes."

The table remained silent after that.

Before they left for Herbology, Harry noticed Ginny talking with the other Gryffindors.

-o-o-o-o-

He sighed. Yes, Herbology was as boring as ever. But Harry was more concerned with the plant in front of him.

What was originally green and lush was rapidly fading to brown. Despite how parched it looked, he raised the spout of his watering can to stop the flow of water. Overwatering was bad for plants as well. He looked down sadly at the helpless plant and sighed again. This was his Mandrake. It had grown sickly in his absence.

_'Why didn't anyone care for it when he was away?'_ He raged quietly. He sighed and held his wand above the plant.

"_Lumos_" he whispered. The tip of his wand started to glow.

_'Enjoy,'_ he despondently thought as he did what he could to keep the plant happy while it was still alive.

-o-o-o-o-

On the way to potions, Harry bumped into a first year Gryffindor girl holding a booklet that looked suspiciously like the diary.

He wasted little time in jerking it from her hands amidst her protest. He quickly flipped through it. His sharp experienced eyes noted that while the pages were blank, the writing was merely hidden away from the public eye with a charm that was easy to remove. This was a diary, but it wasn't TMR's diary.

He was suddenly tackled from the side, dropping the diary in the process. Landing heavily on the floor, he was suddenly attacked by several Gryffindors of varying years. His wand out of reach, the best he could do was to protect his head from the violence.

The attack stopped as quickly as it started. The reason why was soon revealed.

"Getting into trouble a little early, Potter?" It was Snape.

"Sir it's..."

"How many times have I told you that just because your in my house doesn't mean I will look the other way when you get into trouble? 10 points from Slytherin for fighting Mr. Potter," Snape said as he took the book from Harry's hands.

"Sir!"

"Don't you have a class to attend to Mr. Potter?"

"Yes sir..." Harry quietly said as he walked away.

As he headed towards potion, he started to wonder. What if Ginny didn't have the diary this time?

-o-o-o-o-

Harry deliberately made a half stir more.

"Potter, I see that even with your glasses you're blind as a bat. 5 points for not reading the directions more carefully."

'_Funny how he should mention bat_,' The former Boy-Who-Lived thought as he continued to work, unaffected by the threats.

Snape's class was an interesting study.

As he had quickly discovered, Snape still treated him unfairly despite his house affiliation. In fact, he was the only Slytherin that actually lost points. However, Snape must have hated losing to the Gryffindors even more. After tallying up the scores on a small piece of paper, he noticed that he had taken second when he combined the point losses of the Gryffindors. This was without Simon's help. With Simon in the mix, he instantly took third.

-o-o-o-o-

"Harry!"

Harry turned to see who was calling for him.

Ah! This was the one who took first place in the points lost department, even beating out the combined score of his fellow Gryffindors. Harry couldn't say that half of the points lost were legitimate, but Snape was the teacher. What could he do about it?

"Simon?" Harry said, telling Simon that he had his attention. Harry couldn't help but let a trace of bitterness slip into his voice.

"Harry. Mum and Dad asked me to talk to you," his brother started.

"About?"

"Well, you see...they want you to stop associating with the children from the Dark families. They told me that you're becoming dark because of their influence. They told me not to say that to you, but I think that it's so obvious that there was no need to hide it"

Harry thought about it for a moment. In the first place, he wanted to put a lot of distance between the other Slytherins and himself. However, given his current situation and the fact that they were the only ones willing to associate with him.

"I'll think about it," he finally replied.

"Great! I'll let Mum and Dad know. See you later Harry," Simon said.

Harry watched as his counterpart ran towards the owlery.

-o-o-o-o-

"Password?" the fat lady asked. It was when he fumbled in his mind for the password that Harry soon realized why he didn't know it. Along with that realization, he noticed that the room guardian was staring rather intently at the badge emblazoned on the chest of his robes.

"I..uhh.." He turned around and quickly departed from the Gryffindor area before he was discovered.

Once hidden away, he began to think about what he had just learned. The password...he didn't know it. That wasn't good. The secret passages that he remembered leading into the Gryffindor dorms...they were all inside of the Gryffindor common room. He had to somehow pass the fat lady before he could sneak around the Gryffindor dorms.

-o-o-o-o-

He made it to the lunch room several minutes later. Taking a seat at the Slytherin table, he noted that they were watching him silently. Annoyingly, they even made a show of turning their eyes away when he looked in their direction.

He stopped paying attention to his tablemates' activities to stare in the direction of the Gryffindor table. Ginny wasn't present for lunch. '_Curious, but it wasn't troubling_,' he vehemently thought. He had more important things to think about, and he turned to look at the twins. They were laughing and joking with the other Gryffindors of their year.

As he munched on a small corned beef sandwich, he continued to stare intently at the Weasley twins as he thought to himself,_ 'Where would they keep the map?'_

-o-o-o-o-

The Slytherins once again found themselves in the presence of their longtime rival, the Gryffindors. The battlefield this time was History of Magic.

Both sides were losing though.

"...of 10 years was not to last since in 1243, a goblin uprising led by the goblin warlord Rodrog the Cursed..." Binn's lecture continued in his monotone voice.

With a plunk, Harry himself finally blanked out.

Binns won.

-o-o-o-o-

After Professor Binn's History of Magic class, Harry sought out Professor McGonagall.

Standing in front of the wooden door, he reached up and gave it two sharp knocks.

"Enter." came the muffled voice from inside.

"Professor?" Harry announced as he entered her office.

"Mr. Potter? I have been expecting you. Please stand there for a moment," with that she lifted a large stack of parchment from her large ancient desk.

"Here is the work that I would like you to complete," she said as she handed her burden over. "You have a month to complete these assignments. I will be in my office during normal hours should you wish to report on your progress or request some help. Good Day Mr. Potter," McGonagall crisply said before returned to her seat and sat down again.

For a lightened work load, it was still rather thick in his opinion. Thank Merlin McGonagall was kind enough to place a featherweight charm on the stack. Once outside of her office, he gave a long suffering sigh.

-o-o-o-o-

After supper, when it came time for all of the students to be in their common rooms, Harry was found outside wandering the halls near the entrance to the Gryffindor common rooms.

He finally stopped wandering and after saying "open said I," entered a secret passageway that had suddenly appeared in front of him. He didn't exit at the other end, instead he sat down and listened carefully. The other end of this tunnel was positioned near the painting of the fat lady, and the thin wall separating him from the hallway outside made it possible to hear sounds from the other side. It was an ideal spot to eavesdrop for the password. Strangely, not many Gryffindors knew of this passage.

He jerked awake from an impromptu nap when someone said, "Lionheart." He heard the distant sound of a painting swinging open.

He had the password. They weren't going to change it until the end of the week. He paused as he remembered that the fat lady stared at the Slytherin crest when he came to her earlier. 'He needed a way to hide his identity', he thought as he left from the way he came.

On his return trip, he narrowly avoided Filch twice.

-o-o-o-o-

The entrance to the Slytherin common room revealed itself. He pushed it open and entered.

"Where were you?" asked Draco who was sitting upright on the couch. Nott, Crabbe, Bulstrode, and Goyle comprised the other Slytherins that were awake at this time.

"Does it matter?" Harry asked..

"No. No, I suppose it doesn't," Draco cooly replied. "If you're caught, however," Draco left off the threat.

"Fine. I'm going to bed. See you in the morning."

"Harry," Draco called out.

The raven haired boy turned around to see what Malfoy could want now.

"Seriously, watch yourself. If you're caught, we won't be able to hide your nightly activities from my godfather."

-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-

Harry groaned before he reached over for his glasses and wand.

_Tempus,_

Nothing happened. Bloody wand. He concentrated.

_TEMPUS,_

The words _Wednesday, January 6__th__, 7:33AM_ appeared in front of him. It was Wednesday, early morning.

-o-o-o-o-

The owls began soaring overhead as they began their daily delivery. Harry was surprised to find an owl land in front of him. After taking the letter and giving the owl a piece of bacon, he settled down to read.

**We are watching you.**

Crumpling the parchment into a ball, he threw it away uncaringly. At least, that's what it looked like on the outside. Internally, he was wondering who could have sent it.

-o-o-o-o-

Flitwick gave him a detention for skipping class two days ago. Tomorrow night, 8PM.

Harry merely nodded in disinterest.

-o-o-o-o-

Checking that his disguise was in place, he entered the Gryffindor common room and headed for the 4th year dorms.

After poking around the room a little, he left. It was too risky breaking into the twin's trunk with this wand.

He didn't find what he was looking for.

-o-o-o-o-

The lunchroom was in full swing by the time he removed his disguise and came over.

Ginny was present, but she appeared a bit peaked. '_Maybe it was the peas from yesterday, they did taste a little strange,'_ he halfheartedly thought. He really hoped another girl was carrying the diary. Ginny didn't deserve this.

-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-

_Tempus,_

_Thursday, January 7__th__, 10:33AM._ A day after he had made a brief search of the twin's room.

"Potter, 5 points for playing with your wand. Is my class not exciting enough for you?"

"No sir." '_Greasy bat.'_

-o-o-o-o-

The borrowed wand hummed happily as he disabled the traps and opened the trunk. He glanced at the wand sitting in his side pocket. Useless piece of junk.

His wand just sat in his pocket, completely oblivious to his hostile thoughts.

-o-o-o-o-

The map wasn't in the twins' trunk, he finally concluded as he carefully returned everything and reengaged the traps.

-o-o-o-o-

Having skipped lunch, his stomach was growling furiously by the time dinner came around.

He paused only briefly to notice that Ginny wasn't present again. His appetite disappeared. '_She has the diary, doesn't she? No...no. Someone else has it. Once I get the map, I'll find out who has it and save her from Riddle.'_ But, he tried thinking optimistically, even if Ginny did possess it he still had a little time. _ Just a little longer Ginny, hang in there._

-o-o-o-o-

Harry left Flitwick's classroom and headed toward the Gryffindor common rooms once his detention with Flitwick ended. It seemed like Flitwick was just as fair as McGonagall when it came to school matters. While he was still greeted with a stern look, this detention wasn't as ruthless as Snape's or Filch's.

Once he arrived, he found a darkened alcove on the wall directly opposite of the one that the Fat Lady's painting hung on. It was from here that he watched the entrance to the Gryffindor common room. He had a different target this time.

Neville arrived late in the night. However, the twins failed to reveal themselves by the time he decided to return to the Slytherin dormitory.

-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-

He didn't see her inside of the Great Hall, so after a quick sandwich he quickly disappeared citing that he had homework to finish. It wasn't too far from the truth.

Passing under Madame Pince's watchful gaze, he soon found her within the library.

"You're Hermione right?" Harry asked as he approached her table. He was banking on the assumption that this was the first time that the two were meeting.

The bushy haired girl looked up from her book. She quickly looked down, her brown hair hiding her expression.

The two sat in silence for a moment, as Harry continued to stare at her. It looked like she was reading and ignoring him, but he was beginning to worry.

"Hermione?"

That did it. Slapping her book, the girl looked up to regard him with a vicious look. "I hate you, leave me alone already!" the girl shouted. Before he could salvage the situation, Hermione started to cry. Harry knew right then that it was time to leave. Especially since Madame Pince was coming this way to investigate the commotion.

So he had met her already. What did he do this time?

-o-o-o-o-

_Tempus,_

... _Saturday, January 9__th__, 12:26AM. _Friday had finally carried over into Saturday. What a long night. _ 'Two hours and nothing to show for it,'_ he sighed.

Harry cancelled the spell and hid his wand away. Just a little longer. This was for Ginny.

Several minutes later...

"-nix"

He jumped at the sudden voice and quickly shrank into the dark corner as a passageway opened up next to him. Harry gaped in surprise as the twins left the new opening and continued on their way.

"Such a great passageway Fred ol' buddy."

"I'll say, same password for both ends and it leads straight to the boys' dorm."

Harry immediately worked to commit the password to memory, this was too good to be true.

"Why do you suppose Percy was in the common room anyway?" George asked.

'_So that was why the twins took this passage,' _the eavesdropper quickly thought.

"He's probably studying all night again, the git," Fred said laughing.

Their voice dimmed as they moved further and further away. Harry crept out and hurried to follow.

-o-o-o-o-

After taking several passageways, they finally arrived at, lo and behold...another stone wall! Forget Voldemort destroying this castle, Harry was going to shove his way to the front of the line if this kept up.

His sarcastic thoughts abruptly ended when he noticed Fred remove a torch from the wall.

Two taps from a surprisingly solid flame and the password, "Prankster's Sanctuary," and the wall hastened aside to allow passage through.

The twin that was holding the torch returned it to its original spot before both of the redheads entered the room.

Harry crept closer and peered inside.

There! On that table! That was the map. He now knew where they kept it.

In his happiness, he forgot to hide when George glanced back at the door. And that was when things went downhill.

"Oi, Fred. Looks like we have a tagalong."

"I do believe you're right George," Fred agreed. He was silent for a moment, "Harry Potter again? It looks like the wanker hasn't learned not to mess with the Weasleys yet."

_Oh no_. Harry thought as he turned and hightailed it out of there.

They were taller. It was only natural that they were faster. It was inevitable that he would be caught eventually.

During their chase, he glanced back for a brief moment, only to realize...were they skipping after him? Great, they were playing with him. '_They probably have the map on them,'_ he bitterly realized. It was the only reason why the twins weren't worried about losing him. Several spells flew over his head as he leapt around a corner.

The twins finally danced around the corner only to be confronted by a surprising sight. Their quarry had disappeared.

"Rats. Lost him."

"Did you bring the map?" Fred asked.

"No, I thought you had it."

"It looks like we'll have to let the arse escape this time."

"We'll get him later. He can't escape us forever."

The two returned from the direction that they came.

Crouched within a large indentation in the wall, Harry released his breath and stood up from his guarded position. He was fully prepared to duel the two of them, and he had a vast repertoire of spells to choose from, fast reflexes, and a good bit of combat experience. He held his wand up to glare at it.

But with this piece of junk, he didn't think he could win.

-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-

_Tempus._

_Saturday, January 9__th__, 5:12AM _flickered into view. It canceled itself a few moments later. The wand was getting worse. Pretty soon he wouldn't be able to use it.

Harry slowly sat up in his bed. It was a good thing that today was part of the weekend. He had forced himself to remain awake for the majority of this morning.

Sneaking out was fairly easy, and the night patrol was sparser than before.

The entrance to the twin's secret room was also sealed shut, indicating that they had probably finished whatever they came down here to do.

"Prankster's Sanctuary," Harry commanded as he gave the door a twin tap from the solid flame of the torch in his hand. It opened without protest.

Upon entering, Harry was dismayed to realize that the room was almost bare. Quickly removing some traps with a small pillbox that he had charmed earlier with another wand, he went about searching what was left.

No map. No prank supplies either. The twins had moved their base of operation. He quietly left and returned to the dorm room.

_-o-o-o-o-_

He didn't bother with the wand. The mechanical clock read about 4:30 when he finally woke up. The sun was up, but setting, so it must have been in the afternoon.

He realized his mistake after he stepped through the entrance to the boys' dorm.

He was now wearing makeup and a dress.

Draco and the other boys decided to skip dinner to remain in Snape's office until the bat found the countercharm.

Harry was past caring however as he calmly entered the Great Hall alone amidst the laughter and jeers, smoothed the dress and sat down to eat. He was still groggy and wanted to return to bed as soon as possible.

--o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-

_Tempus_

_Wednesday, January 13, 7:20AM. _ It was a few days after the dress incident.

Harry regarded the glowing time with a little bit of happiness. It had been slow going, but he had followed McGonagall's advice to trust the wand. It stopped being a dead weight yesterday evening.

However, it still worked to make his spellwork difficult. Bloody wand. The spell immediately canceled itself out. He bit back a curse.

It was too early to prepare for the day and head to breakfast, so he sat down to think. While she had been present to every meal for a while now, Ginny was looking paler by the day. It wasn't the food. Just yesterday, the house elves had served meatloaf, one dish that Harry knew Ginny would never turn down. And he didn't have any stomach problems this morning. So if it wasn't the food, maybe she was being bullied. This week he had started trailing her when he had the chance...no luck. Ginny got along with almost everyone that she met. Even if she was being threatened, she had a strong following to back her up.

He couldn't deny it anymore, she possessed the diary.

It had been almost a week since he had last tried for the map. He had made very little progress in the area. The twins were far more cautious than before...making it difficult to even follow them. He didn't have time to continue trying to nab the map from the twins. He had to take that diary without it.

-o-o-o-o-

As he laid in bed that night, Harry quickly tried to formulate another plan to seize the diary. The only one that he could think of was a stupendous distraction.

A small smile formed on his face. He really had to thank the twins for teaching him this recipe. But first, he needed supplies. He already had a wand, so firecrackers and a few simple potions ingredients.

Filch's office would have the firecrackers that he needed.

He had most of the potions ingredients from his intermediate potion's kit. However there was one ingredient that he didn't have. There was only one place that he could think of where he would most likely find it. He wanted to avoid it, but he couldn't think of an alternative. He had to ransack Snape's stores for the potion ingredients.

Cakewalk? Yeah...right.

--o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-

_Tempus._

_Thursday, January 14__th__, 3:12AM. _The time quickly extinguished itself. It was early the next morning. He wanted to gather the firecrackers today.

Getting into Filch's office was easy enough. He took a moment to wonder whether he was becoming a night owl with all of this sneaking around at night. He shrugged as he swiped what he was looking for.

He had classes later. Best to get some sleep first.

-o-o-o-o-

_Tempus._

_Thursday, January 14__th__, 9:03PM_. Two hours after curfew. This was the time when Snape should be out patrolling the corridors looking for fresh blood...err children to prey on.

Unless he was in two places at once, this meant that his office and storeroom were unprotected. Now was as good a time as any to ransack it.

As he was preparing to sneak into Snape's room, it occurred to him...why hadn't he been using disillusionment charms? How about silencing charms? Merlin's Beard, wasn't he supposed to be a wizard?

-o-o-o-o-

This wand was becoming very irritating.

He relaxed for a moment before trying again. His shoe glowed a brief yellow. Setting it down, he was happy to note that his footsteps sounded muffled. He briefly considered silencing himself but a glance at his wand told him not to. Silent magic would be impossible to cast.

He approached the door to the classroom. It was locked. With a loud sigh, he pulled out the wand.

-o-o-o-o-

There! He silently opened the cupboard and reached for the required item. He froze when the door to the storeroom flew open.

"Who's there?" Snape demanded into the room.

He didn't move. He couldn't. He was standing in the middle of the room with nothing to hide with. Sneaking past Snape would be impossible, his shoes still made some noise.

The solution swiftly revealed itself. 

Snape glanced around twice more before his eyes came upon the open cupboard. With that, Snape left the room...shutting the door in the process. There was an odd squelching noise. Harry sighed, he was locked in.

He reached into the cupboard and grabbed some of the explosive substance known as _Snot-of-the-Blast-Ended-Skrewt. _Stupid ingredient.

With that, he walked up to a secret passage that he had recently discovered.

"Open the damn door you god-forsaken wand." the wall slid aside without hesitation.

It was a strange password, he could only guess that whoever came up with it had a habit of locking himself out of his own room.

--o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-

_Tempus._

_Saturday, January 16__th__, 1:13AM_. Had it been three hours already? He had been working on a variant of the Weasley Twin's Wildfire Whiz-Bangs since dinner let out on Friday.

Harry was holed up in an unused classroom surrounded by boiling cauldrons and other assorted junk as he attempted to create the special firecrackers that he would need for the distraction. That was why the Weasley twins never sold this variant, the amount of work and time required to assemble one of these was far from profitable.

The original versions were quicker to create because they merely required a complicated charm layered on top of the firecracker. By using a potion for part of the creation process, you simplified the charm required and it made the special firecrackers far harder to get rid of.

However, even with a simplified charm, the wand that he was holding was causing him tremendous trouble.

In fact, he was at the point where he was wildly swiping the wand while incanting the charm.

This time there was a spark but it still wasn't enough. In a fit of frustration, he hurled the wand straight out the window.

This was immediately followed by a vicious oath as he realized what he had just done.

-o-o-o-o-

Finding another wand proved more difficult than he had thought. It was surprising how in a school of magic, where wands were as common as quills, you couldn't find a spare wand laying anywhere when you needed one.

In the end, he had to sneak into Filch's office again for a spare wand.

With a wave and an incantation, the borrowed wand hummed delightedly before the firecracker glowed for a moment. It was ready.

-o-o-o-o-

(Later that day.)

_Tempus._

"It's 12:20PM. Wand giving you trouble again Harry? Strange, didn't it match you perfectly before? Why is it fighting you now?" Nott said as he canceled the spell and put his wand away.

"Maybe your wand isn't agreeing with your magic."

"Wasn't your wand the wood of a dying cedar tree with the essence of a vengeful ghost encased within? It should work well with any dark wizard," Blaise wondered aloud.

The others looked at him expectantly. His tired mind slowly processed that they were waiting for his reply. If a wand that worked well with dark wizards wasn't working well with him. They were suspicious. "Oh," Harry stalled thinking as quickly as he could, "then maybe its all of these light spells that I've been casting for class."

"Yes, that does make sense. You should remove some pests in the forbidden forest with that wand so that it will be more agreeable with you."

"Why are you so tired anyway?" Millicent asked.

The half-awake boy mumbled a quick response to the others at the lunchtable before he rested his head in the cradle of his arms. After creating the firecracker, and returning the borrowed wand, he had spent most of the morning sneaking around school grounds searching for the bloody stick that he had thrown out the window.

-o-o-o-o-

A disillusioned figure slowly approached the entrance to the Gryffindor common room. He took a deep breath to calm himself before he pulled out the cursed stick.

_Tempus._

_Sunday, January 17__th__, 12:05AM_. This was the best time to do this. After partying most of the night, many of the students should be in bed by now. However, a few of the partygoers should still be awake and once this starts they'll awaken their buddies. Today was now Sunday. So once this distraction takes hold, the students will watch for a long time before they return to bed since there were no classes today. He estimated that he had about 45 minutes to search, at best, once he lit the firecracker.

He carefully set the Wildfire Whiz-Bang down. Here goes.

-o-o-o-o-

There wasn't much time. He started ripping through Ginny's belongings, uncaring about the state that he was leaving them in. Where was that thrice damned diary?

There was one spot left. He reached forward and seized the pillow from the bed. Dammit. It wasn't there!

The entrance to the first year girl's door opened.

-o-o-o-o-

There was a shriek from upstairs. He really didn't have much time. Already, he could feel the atmosphere of the dorm change from amused to hostile. This was an ugly situation. If they caught him, he wouldn't make it out alive.

Where? Where was that entrance that the Weasley twins pointed out the other night? Entrance to the boy's dorm right?

He cursed, and quickly jumped through a fake wall to hide. There was the sound of several feet passing by. Probably to check on the girls. There was no sound for several moments.

He dashed out and continued his search. He found several minute differences in the walls that indicated another secret passage, but he had opened all of these before. See, This one led to the common room, that one was the one he just came from, that one over there...he paused and cursed again. He was wasting time. There was another set of footsteps.

He hid again until they disappeared. Where? He looked down. The floor! Shifting the rug, This-this spot looked different. Fantastic! He hurriedly bent down.

"Nix" he whispered. Nothing happened. He cursed.

Wait, maybe nix was part of a longer password. Think...

"Phoenix," he quickly whispered. Nothing happened.

More footsteps, this time coming down slowly and disappearing at random intervals. They were searching..

"Dammit. Ponix. Fonix. Monics. Enix. Unix. Sticks!" Aggh, that didn't even have the right form.

Onyx! He frantically whispered.

Nothing happened for a moment. Then the floor shifted to reveal an opening as well as stairs leading downward. He ran in without hesitation, calling Onyx as he ran downwards. Hopefully the same password that opened the door closed it too.

It was so dark in the tunnel that he nearly tripped on a second set of steps that led upwards. He regained his balance and started heading upwards. He collided with the exit at the other end soon after. He fell in a heap before he stood up and dazedly tried to recall the password. There was the distant sound of several feet tramping downwards. Merlin's beard, why didn't the entrance seal itself? What password did he use to enter?

Oh.

"Onyx!" The passageway opened, and he was in the darkened hallways that led to the Gryffindor common rooms. The firecrackers were still going strong, but it looks like the crowd was more concerned with the girls' dorms. The hallways were devoid of bystanders. But he couldn't relax yet. Harry had little doubt that everything would end here if he were caught. Without a second thought, he took off in a random direction struggling to regain his bearings.

There, that wall.

He ran straight for it, hitting it with such force that the wall fell away, revealing another secret passage.

The distant sound of pursuit dwindled away as he left the passageway and continued to head downwards. As he passed them, several paintings voiced their dislike at being so rudely awakened. He quickly took another passageway. This one forked in several directions, making it harder to track him. He picked one at random and hurried through.

Once he left the passage, he quickly slowed and began to wander aimlessly. Upon seeing the trophy room, Harry started to plan a route that would take him from the third floor and down to the kitchen.

He hadn't wandered far when he heard footsteps. Needing no prompting, Harry quickly found a hiding spot.

"You there!" someone shouted from the darkened hallway of the third floor. The booming voice continued to echo for what seemed like minutes.

There was no reply.

"Come out from behind that suit of armor so that I can see you," the person said in a much lower tone of voice.

"Me?" Harry calmly asked as he stepped away from the armor. His occlumency shields were up and hiding away the nervousness that he should have been feeling.

There were three of them. Gryffindors. None of them were prefects, though two of them appeared to be in their seventh year. The third one was probably in her fifth year. All three were panting heavily, as if they had been running around all night. Perhaps chasing somebody.

"You! What are you doing out at this time of night, Slytherin?" the 7th year boy asked, getting right to the point. His emphasis of 'you' was not lost on our hero. Guess they knew who he was already.

"Wandering," Harry replied after a moment of thought. He regarded all three cooly for a moment. "What are you three doing at this time of night?" he challenged.

"Now listen here you slimy..." Before the girl could continue, the fifth year held a hand in front of her to tell her to stop.

"How come you're all sweaty?" the fifth year asked.

Harry just raised an eyebrow, "Slytherins don't sweat..." ._..Because they're cold blooded snakes_. He was working to change his views in light of recent events, but it was the first defense that came to his mind.

"Okay you arrogant arse, why does it appear that you've been running? And don't give me that bull that Slytherins don't run," the fifth year replied.

"Filch," he succintly said. The fifth year and the seventh year boy relaxed, however the seventh year student started to eye him skeptically.

"Where did you find Filch?" she casually asked.

"Trophy room," he calmly replied calling her bluff.

"Mm hmm...tell me more."

Harry sighed, "He found me wandering through the Trophy room. Soon after, he followed me to a darkened corridor. There, I found a small windowless room hidden behind a heavy wooden door. I hid there." he said as he recounted an adventure from seven years ago. He barely stopped himself from adding that he found a giant three headed dog when he turned around.

"I suppose after Filch lost you, you found your way back here where we found you right?"

"Why?"

"Because little guy, we're going to have you show us where you ran to," the fifth year jeered.

Having little choice, Harry led them to what was known as the forbidden corridor last year.

They came upon a wooden door in the darkened corridor. After rapping it twice, the seventh year boy pronounced that it was oak. Despite its weight, the door swung open easily with magic and the three gazed inside.

Two of the party members sighed, "He's not the one. Come on, hopefully the others had better luck."

"He's lying!" the seventh year girl quickly said. "What if he knew about this spot beforehand?"

"Den, we've wasted enough time. Come on already," the fifth year girl replied.

Alone again, Harry returned to the classrooms on the third floor. Here, he quickly located a pair of doorways that were standing a foot apart. Rapping twice on a spot between them, he quietly said...

"Merlin's Pointy Hat," he watched as the two doorways were shoved aside as a third one slowly grew into view. He opened the new doorway and stepped into an unlit passageway. A blast of cold immediately assaulted him, almost freezing the sweat that clung to his body. Using his wand to light the way, he slowly picked his way through the chilly path.

When he left the passageway, the cold became ten times worse as a strong icy wind blew against him. He struggled for balance as he stood on a thin ledge outside of Hogwarts.

It was too cold for this!

With that thought, he quickly reentered the passageway and returned to the third floor.

After taking the main steps down to the first floor, he opened the final passage that he would need for tonight.

In the basement, directly below the Great Hall, a painting of a peach opened up to eject its occupant. Without hesitating, Harry hurried up to the painting on the opposite side of the hallway. With skill born from years of use, he tickled the pear, pulled the handle and entered the kitchen.

As the elves asked him what he would like to eat, he breathed another sigh of relief. Now it was up to luck to determine whether he had escaped suspicion.

--o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-

_Tempus._

_Sunday, January 17__th__, 9:05AM_. A bit late for breakfast, but there should still be plenty to eat. He was still tired from the firecracker diversion that he performed a few hours ago.

He couldn't help but worry as he entered the Great Hall the following day. His plan worked out fairly well and he escaped without being identified. But what if someone, somehow, had known it was him?

Once he sat down, however, he knew that he was safe. The ones most likely to know who was responsible were the twins. Since he hadn't encountered a prank yet, he was fairly confident that the twins were just as confused over who was responsible.

There was a great deal of gossip in the Great Hall that morning. In fact, over half of the room was remarkably cranky, the firecrackers themselves refused to disappear when they were banished. Instead, they multiplied. It was a remarkable piece of work, but, since people could rarely sleep with so much noise, many were less than appreciative of the prank.

Dumbledore stood up and signaled for quiet. The clamor in the room slowly died down. "I would like to ask the student who was responsible for last night's events to reveal himself."

No one stood up. Harry himself ate calmly, using his occlumency training to the fullest to frustrate the casual scan that he knew Dumbledore was performing. His hand shook slightly as a slight breeze seemed to pass over him.

"Very well then. If no one is willing to admit to it, I must ask that whoever is responsible does not repeat such an act. We will be watching to make sure that this does not happen again," the aged wizard said, indicating the professors to his left and right.

The headmaster sat down and the volume within the room swiftly increased again.

Inwardly, Harry was furiously wondering where the diary could have disappeared to.

-o-o-o-o-

A/N

Details:

I'm unsure about whether Slytherin and Gryffindor take the same History of Magic class

I wish I had the first book next to me. Anyhow, I had to start making up details about the third floor such as the oak door in the forbidden corridor.


	5. The Things I Do for Love

Disclaimer: I do not own the characters from Harry Potter. I write this for my amusement and for others to enjoy, not for profit.

A/N: Hmm, I keep thinking there's too much drama and not enough adventure in this chapter. Ah, well I'll be revising it once I get the sixth chapter out. There are several things I need to insert. Anyway, we're going to assault the Chamber of Secrets differently than how it's usually done.

Warning: I broke away from Canon a little to make up a spell.

"Regular Talking"  
_'Thoughts'  
Memories  
__**Spells  
**_**Sound Effect  
**(Time)

-o-o-o-o-

Chapter 5: "The Things I Do for Love"  
- Courage the Cowardly Dog

-o-o-o-o-

A large painting swung outward slightly with nary a sound. From within the darkness, a raven haired boy with emerald green eyes cautiously peered outside at the busy crowd. Soon after, he closed the painting and walked away..

That was when the screaming started.

-o-o-o-o-

Harry struggled to contain his laughter. He knew very well what everyone was talking about. He was the one responsible for it after all.

As the student quickly found out, it spread by touch. Before they realized it, half of them had been struck by the prank.

It was easy to create too. A few common potion ingredients and a borrowed wand and you had an enchanted brew that was good for one kind of fun. Chaos.

He had designed it in a moment of spare time to show the twins. They weren't impressed. Well, before the horrified cries started anyway. When the three ran out, they discovered that every other witch or wizard in Diagon Alley had green jiggling goo on their head. The twins begged him right then and there for the recipe. He grinned at what they gave him for it. He was positive that they were just looking for an excuse to offload some of their more wilder recipes to see what he could do with them. He paused in thought, wondering if they removed the oddity of the brew. The one where the goo hit about half the crowd, no more no less.

Then everything became chaotic when the second part of his prank went off. While it quickly removed the goo, since the goo came off with water, the fact that it was raining hard, indoors no less, more than made up for the loss of the first prank. He couldn't hold it in anymore. A thoroughly soaked Potter started to laugh loudly as he watched the students slip and scream over each other as they struggled to escape the crazy weather.

As quickly as he started laughing, he stopped to gaze contemplatively at the empty Gryffindor table.

It had been a week since he had released the firecracker. The nightly patrols had been increased to the point where even he was afraid to sneak out at night. He had continued watching Ginny for any signs of the diary, to the point where yesterday he had practically stalked her whenever he had the chance. While she continued to look worse and worse, she showed no signs of carrying the diary on her.

Where could it be? He couldn't waste time guessing anymore.

-o-o-o-o--o-o-o-o--o-o-o-o-

"I'm afraid I'm going to have to give you a zero for your mandrake, Mr. Potter," Professor Sprout quietly said. "However, I noticed that you tried your hardest, so this won't have a serious effect on your grade."

Harry nodded slightly. 'It hadn't even hit adolescence yet,' he sadly thought.

-o-o-o-o-

His fingers hurt and there was a layer of dirt in his fingernails that would probably never wash out, but he continued to dig deeper into the earth. Overhead, the Forbidden Forest rustled quietly as it watched.

He finally stopped. Reaching over, he picked up a wrinkled childlike plant which he gently lowered into the small hole that he had unearthed.

After patting down the loose dirt, he bowed his head in respect before quietly returning to the castle.

-o-o-o-o--o-o-o-o--o-o-o-o-

**Knock knock knock**

"Enter," a voice primly called from inside.

Harry pushed the door open and entered McGonagall's office.

"Mr. Potter? To what do I owe this visit?" Minerva asked as she set her spectacles down to look at the boy entering her room.

"Professor," Harry greeted as he staggered into the room. The book bag on his back must have weighed a lot to give him such an awkward gait. "This is all of them." he announced.

"All of them?" she inquired curiously.

Harry pulled out several small stacks of parchments in reply. If it wasn't for magic, they would easily be bigger than the bag.

"I...see," McGonagall slowly said. Please place them here," McGonagall ordered as she gave a swift flick of her wand. The tidy stack of papers in the aforementioned spot quickly floated away to land on an unoccupied chair.

With a grunt, he raised the stack of completed homework and placed it in the now-empty spot.

"You look atrocious Mr. Potter. I daresay that staying up for several days to finish this a week early was both ill-advised and irresponsible."

"Sorry Professor," he responded, slightly chastised. In truth, he had been having trouble sleeping this past week. Doing the make-up work was the only thing that he could think of to pass the time as the hours slowly ticked away. A pepper-up potion in the morning was the best he could do afterwards.

"However, excellent job Mr. Potter. Hogwarts could use more studious students like you. Take this pass, I shall have Professor Lockhart excuse you from his class for today," her tone of voice suggested that a no from the charlatan would be completely unacceptable. "Hurry back to your room and catch some much needed rest. I expect you to look more presentable by dinner." Her tone of voice left no room for argument. With that dismissal, Harry wearily left her office.

-o-o-o-o--o-o-o-o--o-o-o-o-

(The Next Day)

Harry fidgeted uncomfortably as he hid, disillusioned, in a small corner, away from the eyes of the artwork. Of course it would look suspicious if a boy was watching what was obviously the girl's bathroom. However, if he remembered correctly, today was the day that he had stumbled upon the diary in Myrtle's haunt.

However – he quickly held his breath as several students hurried by – nothing out of the ordinary had happened so far.

A bell finally chimed from out of nowhere, signaling that lunch was over. Harry stood up to head to his next class, dropping the disillusionment charm before he appeared from the corner.

-o-o-o-o-

Two hours later, there was a large puddle outside of Moaning Myrtle's bathroom when he returned. Without wasting a moment, Harry entered the bathroom to look for the diary.

"A boy in the girl's bathroom?" asked a voice from above as he started inspecting the stalls after a brief examination of the floor..

Looking up, Harry saw Myrtle floating about. "I'm just looking for a little black book, Myrtle."

"You mean, you weren't looking for me?" the ghost asked, distraught. "Boo hoo, that's Myrtle for you. The first one forgotten and the one never remembered. But wait! You called me by name." She started to giggle and hug herself.

Harry backed away slightly. "Myrtle," he whispered out, trying to distract the ghost.

"Myrtle," he whispered slightly louder.

The ghost stopped dreaming to look downwards again. "I wasn't imagining things! You really did remember my name?" the ghost asked in amazement.

"Yes, have you seen the book?" he asked the second question that popped in his head, he had to admit that the first one was a bit mean.

"Again about that book? That's all that you want to know about? Why doesn't anyone want to know anything about poor poor Myrtle?"

She looked like she wanted to cry.

"I'm sorry I'm sorry. It's just, I'm in a hurry. Dinner is starting soon." Harry apologized exasperatedly.

"Is food more important to you than me? Fine! If that's the way you want it. No, I haven't seen your stupid book," she angrily spat as she flew into her toilet.

Several students spotted Harry sloshing out of the bathroom in a hurry just as Myrtle started to cry.

-o-o-o-o-

After dinner, Harry once again left the company of the others since they were returning to the Slytherin common room. Instead, he headed upstairs towards Myrtle's bathroom.

The floor was dry by the time he returned and it appeared that Myrtle was not inside. He snuck in.

Minutes later, Harry crept out despondently. No luck.

-o-o-o-o-

As he quietly laid in bed, Harry couldn't help but wonder what went wrong. Why didn't the diary make its appearance today? Did he remember the wrong date?

Maybe he did. He remembered something significant happened with the diary on Valentine's day. Could that be the day that he found it? No, it probably wasn't. He made a mental note to continue checking the bathroom from time to time. It would show up eventually, right?

-o-o-o-o--o-o-o-o--o-o-o-o-

The blackness slowly disappeared as he slowly opened his eyes. After glancing at the deep green covers and the ragged silver curtain, he laid back down and stared at the green ceiling.

He groaned. What had he done to deserve being sent here?

-o-o-o-o-

…_Harry, alternate worlds are completely theoretical. Unspeakables have shown that they don't exist..._

There it was again, an innocent walk towards the library and that strange memory decides to appear again. Well, if alternate worlds did not exist, where on earth could he be that had the same people and places but younger, alive, or unfriendly? The States?

'_Once I return home, I'm going to have words with whoever was responsible for that blasted conclusion,'_ he thought viciously.

He hung his head as he thought about how he was going to return home. So far his famed luck wasn't working, or maybe it was working too well. Whatever the case, he was still here. So he would probably need to find the right spell if he wanted to get out of here. But he had no idea what spell was responsible for sending him here in the first place. And even if he did, it was Hermione that had the time, patience, and know-how to research ways to reverse the spells. She had already demonstrated that she was less than willing to talk however. The best he could hope for at the moment was that someone on the other side figured out how to pull him back.

Harry quickly quelched the hopeless thoughts as he tried to think positively. This world, it was like a dream come true right? Here he had his parents, a family. Ginny was alive again. Voldemort was gone for the moment...

He abruptly ended that train of thought when he was forcefully knocked aside. The scattered laughter from the crowd told him that this was no accident..

Bloody hell! He was friendless, the school was hostile, and there was no one he could depend on. It was so much like fifth year that Harry was tempted to seek out Trevor and cast an enlargement charm on the toad.

What was going on? Why was he the school outcast again?

He had no idea. Which is why, after arriving at his destination, he was pushing open the door to a large room that was filled to the brim with books.

Hunching over as Madame Pince's sharp gaze passed over him, he headed toward the newspaper archives. It was time to browse through history to see what else had changed.

-o-o-o-o-

Two days later, he came upon this small editorial:

_Daily Prophet  
December 19, 1992_

_Written by Anonymous_

_In response to the December 20th article titled, "Twin of Boy-Who-Lived Welcomed Back" which contained the following lines:_

_Following the third attack, immediate steps have been taken to restore young Harry Potter's student status as soon as possible. By the end of Christmas Break, we should see young Potter walking through the halls of Hogwarts again. The search continues for the one responsible._

_It is this writer's belief that allowing such a dark student to return to the hallowed halls of Hogwarts is a foolhardy measure and places the other children in unnecessary danger. However, when Dumbledore was asked about the Board of Governors' decision, his reply, "While it is indeed a great risk, I have allowed this action to happen because the boy is still young and I believe that he will eventually see the light," demonstrates tremendous optimism. We can only hope this does not backfire in his face. However, I have found ways to protect myself from dark wizards. Please have you child follow these steps if you wish to protect them from harm:_

_Ensure that their trunks are locked at all times..._

He paused after reading through the list the first time. After scanning the list a second time, he understood what was bothering him. Half the steps listed were designed to protect one's personal belongings from thieves. The other half listed ways to protect your home from muggle strangers.

Great. This muggle repellant charm looked like a good suggestion, I mean keeping the muggles away from your bed to avoid attracting Death Eaters? Whoa. Wouldn't you need muggles inside of Hogwarts then?

Where did all the brains go when it was this wizard's turn to take one?

-o-o-o-o-

Two days later, he finally found this article.

_Daily Prophet  
November 9, 1992  
Evil Twin of Boy-Who-Lived Removed from Hogwarts_

Harry narrowed his eyes at the unflattering title. He continued to read.

_On November 8__th__, immediately following the second attack on fellow student Colin Creevy, Harry Potter the primary suspect behind the unknown attacks at Hogwarts has been suspended as a protective measure designed to prevent further attacks from occurring. He will be detained at home under the watch of Auror Sirius Black and Auror James Potter, both of whom will be responsible for reporting any suspicious activity from the boy. Meanwhile, a full investigation of the boy's background and actions at Hogwarts will occur, and, if he should be found responsible for the attacks, the suspension will become permanent in addition to possible time in Azkaban. _

_None of those involved have been killed yet..._

Harry set the article down after reading a bit more about the victims affected so far. So that was why he had not been in school for some time now.

He felt that he should have had a more explosive response towards the article. But the best that he could feel was numbness. He had no idea why.

-o-o-o-o--o-o-o-o--o-o-o-o-

It was Valentine's Day. Harry spent the lunch hour holed up in the library.

There were some articles about sightings of Simon in Diagon Alley the summer of last year. He also found an article about the Boy-Who-Lived visiting a charity foundation with a gracious donation. Then there was the article where Simon saved Hogwarts from a shadow of Voldemort last year. Overall, except for the Chamber incidents that were happening now, he was generally unnoticed by the wizarding world despite his relation to the Boy-Who-Lived. He remembered telling others that he didn't want the fame, but Harry couldn't help but be disappointed at this newfound anonymity.

There was a question that was bothering him that he did not have the answer to. This world was quick to accuse of him for any troubling or dangerous events. Why? It couldn't just be because he was in Slytherin. Other students from light-affiliated families fell into Slytherin before. He couldn't think of anyone right off the bat, but he was pretty certain they didn't receive the flak that he was getting.

He looked at the grandfather clock. Fifteen minutes until lunch was over, he had some time to check Myrtle's bathroom.

The hallways were empty, and they echoed with each step that he took. He quickly descended to the second floor.

There was a small pool of water in front of the bathroom again. Harry peered in cautiously when he heard sobbing and splashing..

"Poor poor Myrtle, no one to see her on Valentine's Day." the ghost within moaned. She paused before asking, "Who's there? Did you come to see me?" Her head popped out from behind the wall. "Weren't you the cute boy who was looking for something the day before?"

Diary not on the floor! Best to head for transfiguration. He ran for it, almost slipping on the wet stone during his frantic escape attempt.

-o-o-o-o-

Harry was the first to arrive at the Transfiguration classroom, but he didn't have to wait long before the other Slytherins arrived. They seemed to be in great spirits.

"Harry! You missed your idiotic brother being tackled by a dwarf," Zabini guffawed.

"What do you mean?" Harry asked. He had an inkling of what they were telling him, but he wasn't positive.

"Lockhart had these creatures deliver singing Valentines which your brother tried to run away from. The prat spilled the contents of his bag when one grabbed his legs and floored him.

"The best part was the poem itself," Malfoy said before he mimicked in a poor falsetto:

His eyes are as brown as a chocolate scarab,  
His hair is as auburn as a glowing hot coal.  
I wish he was mine, he's really divine,  
The hero who conquered the Dark Lord.

There was a collective laugh which Harry didn't take part in. He failed to see the humor in such a situation, having been in the same position years ago. In fact, he felt somewhat depressed upon hearing that somewhat familiar valentine addressed to someone else. He never did find out who sent it.

"There you go again Harry, too high and mighty for the others aren't you," Bulstrode pointed out surprising him from his stupor.

"It just...wasn't funny," he found himself replying.

"Wasn't funny?" Nott said in surprise, "Harry, this is your brother that we're talking about. It's always funny to see him taken down. Laugh with us, Hahahaha." He was soon joined by the others, Harry included. Except Harry's was more like a weak chuckle than raucous laughter.

It went without saying that most of the Slytherins were glaring angrily at him soon after. An unspoken message seemed to pass through the group, one that Harry heard rather clearly.

He wasn't one of them anymore.

The other Slytherins quickly banded together to discuss today's events, making sure to keep Harry out of hearing range.

That suited him just fine. Settling down for some peace and quiet, Harry almost jumped when a hand clasped him on the shoulder. Turning around, he looked up as Draco approached him. He tried to lean away, but the firm grip on his shoulder held him in place. "Harry, we're good partners. Tell me...what are you planning?" Draco whispered into his ear.

Harry didn't know what to say. Saying that he was trying to grab a hold of the diary that was responsible for all of this and he intended to destroy it without anyone being the wiser was definitely a big no no.

Draco frowned, "Fine, don't tell me. I'll try and keep my godfather off your back, but this had better be good."

-o-o-o-o--o-o-o-o--o-o-o-o-

They met in the hallway. Or rather, they knocked each over again.

Harry slowly picked himself up before he started to return the glare that she was giving him. The glare on her face dropped away, only to return with twice as much intensity.

That royally pissed him off. Here he was trying to save her, and, despite her awful appearance, she still had the energy to show her hatred of him.

"I've had it," he mumbled. "That's...it," he slowly said, emphasizing the second word. He stepped forward menacingly and seized her shoulders before she had a chance to escape. He challengingly looked straight into her eyes.

He could've shouted any number of things at her, but the foremost question in his mind came first.

"Where is it?" He sounded so much like Moody and he looked just as crazy that it wasn't a surprise when the girl beneath him began panicking.

"Where is it?" He shouted again, shaking the girl.

"Help!" the girl screamed as tears began to appear. His anger quickly disappeared. In shock over what he was doing, Harry released her.

The hurried footsteps of help arriving was the only warning that he had.

He leapt aside. A red bolt splashing the spot that he had been previously.

_**Protego!**_ He shouted as he swung around and formed a shield to defend against the followup attack.

A weak shield appeared, it barely deflected the spell that impacted upon it.

In moments, it was all over.

Harry was lying unconcious as spells continued to splash upon him, his next shield failing to appear to save him from the rope-binding charm that followed and the subsequent bashing afterwards.

-o-o-o-o-

With a groan, he struggled to wakefulness.

Upon seeing the whitewashed walls and feeling the uncomfortable bed, Harry groaned. He was in the infirmary again.

He sat up. At least he felt better than last time. Looking around, he saw no signs of Madame Pomfrey.

He stumbled out of bed and headed for the door.

-o-o-o-o-

On his way to his bed, he took a route that would pass by the second floor girl's bathroom. He froze in front of the bathroom..

Oh no...

There, written on the walls in blood-red...

**Her skeleton will lie in the Chamber forever**

It was too early! He wasn't ready!

Harry turned to look at the entrance to the bathroom.

_Harry! We can't just charge in there. We need a plan!_

'Sorry Hermione, there's no time again,' he thought bitterly. He ran in.

-o-o-o-o-

The sink was within easy reach. It didn't take long to find the snake engraved in the sink.

"Open up." He said. Nothing happened.

"Open up!" He commanded. Again, nothing happened.

Harry was interrupted from his third attempt when a cold chill ran through his body. Spinning around, he came face to face with Myrtle.

"Why are you telling the sink to open up?" she asked curiously.

A million thoughts ran through his head, he immediately said the first thing that came to his mind.

"Myrtle, you can speak Parseltongue!"

"Can I? It sounded like English to me." She floated up to the sink tap. "Open up," she curiously told the sink.

"Look at the snake on the tap before you say it," Harry halfheartedly ordered.

"Open up." They waited for a moment for something to happen.

"Like that?" Myrtle asked the boy behind her. There was no reply. When she turned around to look, she was greeted with the sight of an empty restroom.

"Bother, alone again." Without another word, she floated to her toilet to sulk.

-o-o-o-o-

Harry was currently dashing upwards toward the 7th floor. There was only one person on his mind that could help Ginny now. Simon, the-boy-who-lived.

He wasn't looking forward to this meeting, having avoided his supposed twin since school started, but now he had no choice.

That was when the castle decided to be funny and on his way to the Gryffindor common room, Harry was turned around. He soon found himself wheezing in the corridor that contained the entrance to the Room of Requirements.

Once he regained enough of his bearings to resume his search for Simon, he paused.

...It couldn't be that easy could it? He quickly paced across the entrance while thinking, 'I need a way into the sewers of Hogwarts.' On his third pass Harry was knocked off of his feet as the ground beneath him began to rumble and groan.

Once the shaking stopped and he could stand again, he found that the entrance to the Room of Requirements had appeared. Wasting little time, he pushed the door open and stepped inside.

The next thing he knew, he was in a small purple room. On the opposite wall was a large opening that headed downwards. That must lead to the Chamber of Secrets.

Harry took a moment to study the steep yet oddly familiar looking stairs. 'W_asn't this one of the staircases that connected the sixth floor to the seventh_,' he briefly thought before he stepped took the first step forward.

-o-o-o-o-

After treading downwards for some time, the stairs ended abruptly, to be replaced by a steep ramp covered with mud. He underestimated the slipperiness of the surface, because the instant he took a step, he slipped. He found himself on his back soon after and riding down the muddy incline at an incredible rate.

The incline eventually petered out, slowing him down slightly and allowing him to shift into a sitting position.

He was ejected into the sewers below Hogwarts soon after where he experienced a moment of free fall before pain shot throughout his body as he landed heavily in the shallow pool of water.

Before he had a chance to recover, the ground started to shake again. Harry turned around just in time to see the opening, that he had flew out of, sealing itself away.

There was no way back.

Slowly standing up, Harry looked around for a moment to orient himself. He found himself standing in a dead end with only one way to go.

With that, he started walking down the long damp tunnel that connected Myrtle's bathroom to the Chamber of Secrets.

-o-o-o-o-

Just as he remembered, the tunnel continued to wind aimlessly for a long time. The giant snakeskin that he found along the way still instilled him with a tidbit of fear, however its presence comforted him as well, reassuring him that not everything was different.

He turned a corner.

"No!" He shouted in horror.

"No no no," he repeated as he ran up to the ornate door that guarded the Chamber of Secrets. He had forgotten that it was there.

Upon reaching the door and discovering its solidarity, he took a step back.

_**Alohorama!**_

The wand spit out an invisible bolt, but there was no effect.

He put more magic into the spell, to which the wand protested viciously.

_**Alohorama!**_

Still no effect.

_**Reducto!**_

The door absorbed the spell without hesitation.

After trying several more spells, Harry resorted to futilely pounding on the door as he cried. He couldn't save her. He couldn't save her! He slowly collapsed to the ground. Ginny was going to die again! Why couldn't his life ever be normal? Why did everyone he cared about have to die? Damn you Voldemort!

"Damn you!"

And then, Life slowly returned to him. He sat up, his eyes burning with a furious emerald green fire. Ginny might be dead, but he was going to make sure that Riddle didn't leave either.

'Okay Hermione, we have some time. Let's finish this.'

-o-o-o-o-

"No! That won't work!" he muttered exasperatedly. At first he had been planning his first few moves against an armed opponent. That was when he remembered that Tom had picked up his wand the last time he had come down here.

His next plan was designed for a pushover. Stun Riddle then end it.

And then he realized that Tom would not leave the Chamber alone.

Sure, he could still surprise Riddle but the Basilisk would take him out soon after.

What tactics did he have against such a large magical creature without a phoenix, sword, or wand?

Maybe he could dig a deep hole then drop fire on them. No...not enough time...not with this bloody stick.

That's what it all came down to, without a good source of magic he couldn't even begin half of his plans.

He hung his head. 'Help me, somebody, anybody.'

_Harry, I have a dark spell for you to learn._

He looked up. Huh? This memory, it tickled at the edge of his consciousness. What was it about?

_No wait, hear me out. It's not really one spell. It's more like a trick. The fact that it's possible to use this trick to cause harm is what makes it dark. _

_First, you must charge your wand with an incredible amount of magical energy. Then you plug the wand with your magic so that the magic stored within cannot escape. The instant you disconnect your magic, the plug will pop off and magic contained within will shoot out. Because the wand will be unable to channel the amount of magic that wants to burst out, it will soon self-destruct. In the process, it will release the remainder of its stored energy in one tremendous burst of magic. _

_If you intended for the wand to harm or destroy as you fed it with magic, the explosion could cause a lot of damage. I've read that a wall of the ministry was destroyed when this trick was tested...that's difficult to accomplish if you haven't realized. But I must ask that you never use it unless there is no other choice._

_How come?_

_First, it destroys your wand. If you have to continue fighting that puts you at a severe disadvantage. Second, it's unstable. If you lose your focus you will be caught in an explosion before you finish. Finally, where do you suppose the magic for the burst comes from? You! This spell will leave you feeling very exhausted whether it succeeds or fails in pushing back your attackers. That leaves you in a bad position if you're trying to escape._

_Why would I want to use it then?_

_Hermione gave him a sad look. _

_Oh...if he couldn't escape._

_Anyway, let's start. The incantations that you will need to know are... _

Hermione's spell! It could work!

He gazed questioningly at the stick.

Would it work?

Determination filled him as he sat up. It was the best option so far and he was running out of time. Could he create a plan around this spell? After a brief moment of thought, he believed that he could.

He quickly started on the small details of the plan. Where would he be when the wand exploded. He looked at the door to the chamber, then deep into the cave. He decided that hiding deeper in the cave was the best chance for success. But he wasn't going to see Riddle picking up the wand then, how would he know when to release the plug? He glanced down at the wand for a moment before he smiled. That would work. The plan seemed like it would work, it was time to start.

_**Termino Virga!**_ The ends of the stick started to glow, indicating that they were sealed.

_**Saturo Virga Mago.**_He felt a slight pull on his magic. It was ready.

_Remember, you intend to destroy. Using any other intent as you force your magic into the wand will cause something different to happen._ Came Hermione's ghostly voice.

He started to funnel some of his magic into the stick as he imagined how much damage it would do. To his amazement, it soon stopped resisting and began greedily gobbling up what magic he could feed it.

_The more magic you feed into the wand, the more powerful the magic nova. However, the more magic you insert the less effect it has. It's easy to double the power, but tripling the damage will take four times as much magic and quadrupling the effect will need eight times as much._

The stick began to glow, the point where it was possible to harmlessly dissipate the excess magic had probably been passed. The wand started to shake with that thought.

_Do not lose your focus. Doing so could cause the wand to backfire horribly._

He stopped thinking, concentrating on feeding more power to the sti-, no, wand. He finally understood.

The red glow continued to brighten as the wand absorbed more and more magic. However, the outer casing remained cool to the touch.

_Remember to save some of your strength. If this works, you may be able to escape. You will need that strength then..._

He was starting to feel lightheaded. Capping off the stream of magic, he held the wand aloft for two more spells, one of which was...

_**Subiungo Mago Virga**_ A thin invisible thread of magic now connected him to the wand. It was safe to release the wand now.

He muttered another incantation. A small simple one that needed almost no power. Upon seeing the glowing wand flash silver for a brief moment, he dropped it on the ground.

He grinned as he walked away. He finally understood why the wand hated him. The wand, it possessed a need to cause destruction. It had harmonized with him because he finally had the desire to destroy. It's a shame that he had passed the point of no return, that wand might have been useful.

He shrugged, _'oh well.'_ There were better wands anyway.

-o-o-o-o-

'No one can stop me now,' He thought as he looked at the pale still form of the redheaded girl in front of him. Soon the ritual would be complete, and he would be at his full power.

He had expected some form of resistance from that old fool, but surprisingly there was none. A serious mistake.

Eager to begin his conquest of Hogwarts as soon as possible, he bent down to pull his diary from the motionless girl's hands before he walked to the opposite end of the chamber.

The Basilisk slithered behind him, dutifully awaiting his commands.

"Open up," he commanded the door.

The snakes twisted apart as the opening revealed itself, revealing the tunnel that led to the Chamber of Secrets.

Tom's attention was drawn to an object that was lying out of place amidst the stones of the cave. A glowing stick that he immediately recognized as a wand.

So there was another wizard down here. Tom looked around carefully but did not see any signs of the newcomer. ' Must have run away in fear,' he gloated.

Tom glanced at his empty hands. Wandless magic would only take him so far, to have a magic wand provided to him so soon was indeed convenient. Just for that, the nameless wizard would have the honor of being the newly resurrected Dark Lord's first kill. He bent down to pick up the wand, not concerned in the slightest that it was glowing a malevolent red.

He quickly dropped it in surprise when it began shrieking loudly. Soon after, a loud fwee accompanied the shrieking. Tom watched the sparks fly out of the wand for a brief moment.

Then his world became a bright red.

-o-o-o-o-

When the cries of pain and agony died out and the red-washed walls faded back to their dim shadowy gray, Harry slowly staggered out from his hiding spot at the turn in the tunnel. The backlash from removing the plug gave him such a headache that if it wasn't for his previous experiences with head splitting pains he'd be unconscious by now.

Next time he saw Hermione, he was going to have her add this to the list of why nots.

Shifting the heavy stones that he held in the crook of his arm, he walked closer to inspect his handiwork.

The first thing that he saw was the smoking form of the Basilisk. It didn't take him long to ascertain that he was looking at its backside. It appeared to be unharmed, but it made no motion as he moved closer. Harry guessed that it was unconcious.

He cautiously crept even nearer before he looked downwards. He had stepped on something different. Looking down, he gazed dispassionately at the burnt out remains of Tom's diary.

Oddly, there was no body.

He peered into the Chambers, and saw the small outline of someone lying within. Ginny. Carefully stepping around the Basilisk, he entered the chamber to pick up her body.

-o-o-o-o-

Instead of the pale husk that he expected to find, Harry discovered that while she appeared weak, Ginny appeared to be healthy and breathing.

Mindful of the basilisk, Harry suppressed his whoop of joy for later. Instead, he settled for giving her a small peck on the cheek. She was still alive!

Picking her up in a fireman's carry, he snuck past the basilisk again as he made his way for the exit.

-o-o-o-o-

A/N:

I couldn't find any references to student carrying containers, so I decided to choose a run-of-the-mill magical backpack to carry the homework in. I'm sure it would be on the list of first year supplies.

It later occurred to me that when Harry was bowled over by the dwarf, his school books spilled out of something. What? _ Thanks Prd2bAmerican18 for the answer._


	6. Aftermath of the Chamber

Disclaimer: I do not own the characters from Harry Potter. I write this for my amusement and for others to enjoy, not for profit.

A/N: Another Adventure Chapter! This'll have less spying and more action!

"Regular Talking"  
'Thoughts'  
_**Spells**__  
Memories  
_**Sound Effect  
**(Time / Place)

-o-o-o-o-

Chapter 6:

-o-o-o-o-

Ginny awoke quicker than he had anticipated.

That was the best way to put it, he supposed, as he fell forward when her screaming and flailing knocked him off-balance.

**SPLASH**

He was envisioning a scene where Ginny would wake up and proceed to hug him for saving her life. Dropping the girl in the shallow dirty water was not, in any way, part of this scene. So when it happened, the best he could do was supress his laughter. She looked like a wet cat.

"How dare you!" she shouted catching his attention. "You git, you threw me into the water on purpose didn't y- Merlin's Beard!" She shrieked when she realized who it was that she was yelling at.

All this noise wasn't making the headache go away. "Look princess," he shot back, "I've been carrying you along this stupid for Merlin knows how long already. Do you think you would've woken up on my shoulder if I wanted to throw you into the water?"

He took several deep breaths, in the dim lighting the girl looked suitably chastised. "Now, can you walk or do I have to continue carrying you?"

-o-o-o-o-

The two stared at the closed entrance.

"Great, I'm going to die here because the hero forgot to leave the door unlocked," Ginny mumbled.

Harry looked up angrily.

"Call for help," he demanded in a cold voice.

"What?"

"Call for help now or else," he threatened.

"Why should I?" the girl challenged.

He let out a breath of frustration. "Just do it!"

"Help," the girl said without an ounce of panic.

"Are you daft? If you're going to call him like that then you're better off commenting that it's a bit chilly down here," the boy scorned.

"Well how do you want me to call him then?" the girl replied.

Harry remained silent for a moment. "Like you're desperate."

"What?"

"Really desperate," the boy said with a smirk.

"He-lp Dumbledore!" the girl sang out. The smirk fell off his face.

"You're not trying are you?"

Ginny remained silent. She was glaring defiantly at him.

He sighed, before fixed her with his own piercing glare. "Okay, think about it this way." He moved closer.

"You're trapped down here with me, a Slytherin, the famed evil twin of the boy who lived. I'm older and I'm bigger than you," he gave her a shove, the girl fell against the wall. Soon after, both of his hands were resting against the wall above her head as he stared down at her, his arms fully extended to keep him from falling over.

"If you don't start shouting desperately for help, I'm going to have my way with you and then make sure you'll never see the light of day ever again...Got That?! You've got until the count of 3."

He was about to shout one...

"Get away!" Ginny shrieked in fear as she gave him a hard shove.

At the same instant, there was a tremendous ball of flame and a phoenix appeared with a song.

"Fawkes!" Harry called out, happy to see the phoenix.

The red-gold bird turned and fixed Harry with a hard stare for a moment. Finding what he was looking for, Fawkes nodded before flying to a rock by Harry's side.

Dumbledore's familiar accepted him!

Harry was grateful for this turn of events. "Fawkes, can you take us out of here?"

The phoenix looked around for a moment. He mournfully shook his head no before disappearing in a burst of flames.

Before the two had a chance to realize that the phoenix had abandoned them already, Fawkes reappeared clutching some items in his talon.

Harry's eyes widened when he realized what they were. "Brilliant Fawkes! Okay, give me a moment to write out the message."

He sat down to write but the phoenix gave him a small nudge. Confused, Harry looked up and watched as the phoenix flew away and alighted on a rock some distance away. It seemed like Fawkes was urging him to follow. Harry slowly stood up and walked over. Ginny soon tried to follow. Only...Fawkes flew between the two and started to gently nudge Ginny away.

It didn't take long for the two of them to realize that the phoenix wanted to give Harry some privacy.

Harry settled down to write the note.

_Help. Ginny and I are trapped in the Chamber of Secrets without a way out. We need you to enter the Room of Requirements using 'I need to enter the Chamber of Secrets'_

_Harry_

Harry rolled up the parchment before handing it to the phoenix. Fawkes looked lazily at it before shaking his head no.

Confused, Harry unrolled the parchment and looked it over again. Maybe they didn't know where the Room of Requirements was located. After scratching out some words, he started to write again.

_Help. Ginny and I trapped in the Chamber of Secrets without a way out. We need you to find the tapestry on the 7__th__ floor where Barnabas the Barmy is trying to teach trolls the ballet. Walk across the wall that's opposite that tapestry three times while thinking 'I need to enter the Chamber of Secrets.'_

_Harry_

Fawkes refused again. Great...

-o-o-o-o-

"You bloody chicken, take one already!" Ginny shouted, obviously having gotten over her adoration of the phoenix.

Dumbledore's familiar appeared not to hear the insults as he continued to preen himself while waiting for the Harry's next attempt.

It wouldn't be so bad for Ginny if she were allowed to do something other than sit miles away, but everytime she stood up to see what Harry was writing, Fawkes would fly up to her and flap in her face. The one time she decided to become physical was the exact same time that the phoenix showed how much weight he could not only lift but push as well.

Harry himself was struggling with hunger, fatigue, and a cramping hand. He finally let go of the quill and lifted up his latest work to show Fawkes.

_Ms. Weasley is currently trapped within the Chamber of Secrets. If you wish to retrieve her, you will bring Simon to the girl's bathroom on the third floor. Have him say open up to the snake located on a tap in the sink. The rest shall be revealed._

After examining the newest letter, Fawkes pecked at a few names and places, before turning to one of his discarded parchments and repeating his action. Quickly noting the spots that Fawkes pecked at from the beak indents in the parchment, Harry sighed before taking out another piece of parchment.

-o-o-o-o-

So that was his game, Harry thought as he finished scribing the latest message. Fawkes was urging him to be wary and protective of what he knew. In addition, the phoenix was telling him to act formal and distant. But why?

He held up the latest letter.

_Help. Ginevra Weasley and I are trapped and need a way out. We need you to take Simon Potter to the girl's bathroom on the second floor and have him tell the snake symbol on the faucet to 'Open Up.' The rest shall be revealed. _

_H.P._

Fawkes took a look at the newest letter before nodding. However, instead of immediately picking up the newest letter, the phoenix started to gather the old ones.

Harry quickly bent down to help with the gathering. He had an idea of what Fawkes planned to do with these parchments.

When the phoenix disappeared in a burst of fire after picking up the small stack, Harry knew that no one would ever see them again.

Fawkes reappeared soon after to pick up the final letter and deliver it to the headmaster.

-o-o-o-o-

The cave started to rumble as an opening appeared. There was a trill as a phoenix flew down to meet them.

"Fawkes! Am I glad to see you," Harry greeted the phoenix as he pointed to the glaring girl behind him.

While the animosity between the two had all but disappeared after this foray into the Chamber, hunger and tiredness conspired to make them ill-tempered. Harry had a feeling that threatening her to summon Fawkes was also affecting the girl's mood since all of his attempts at small talk while they waited were met with stubborn silence. Odd for a normally talkative girl.

Fawkes gestured for him to grab a tail feather. The instant that he touched the long reddish gold feather, he felt weightless again.

He reached out for Ginny to take his hand.

The girl hesitated before she smeared her hand in mud and reached out. He supressed the wince of disgust upon feeling the gooey substance slip around his fingers.

It didn't take long for Fawkes to fly them out of the hole in Moaning Myrte's bathroom where the astonished eyes of Dumbledore, the Weasleys parents, and the rest of the Potter family were waiting for them.

After Harry let go, the phoenix disappeared.

Looking at the welcoming party, He noticed the angry mother with the wand. He gaped in disbelief for a second before he moved to dodge. He wasn't fast enough.

For a brief moment, he was aware of the others moving to restrain Mrs. Weasley as he started to fall into the shadowy opening of the entrance. Then his world turned black as the magic overcame him.

-o-o-o-o--o-o-o-o--o-o-o-o-

(Infirmary)

Harry opened his eyes. However, they were glassy-eyed and unfocused.

Sitting inside of the room were Dumbledore, James and Lily Potter, Sirius Black, and Molly and Arthur Weasley. The Potter children had already been sent away. Those in the room shared grim looks as they stared at the boy that was under Veritaserum. Well, almost all of them. Lily looked upset.

"Can you hear me?" Dumbledore began.

"Yes." Harry replied in a monotone voice.

"What is your name?"   
"Harry James Potter"

"What is your birthdate?"  
"July 31st, 1980."

"Why were you in the chamber of secrets?" the questioner continued.  
"To save Ginny."

"He lies," Molly accused.  
"We're using a truth potion, how could my son be lying?" Lily asked.  
"I'm not," Harry replied when he heard the question.  
"Quiet!" Dumbledore ordered.

Once peace had returned to the room,

"What were you saving Ginny from?" was Dumbledore's next question.  
"Riddle, his Basilisk."

None of the occupants in the room were surprised when he said this. They had heard the story from Ginny's point of view already.

"How did you avoid the basilisk?" James demanded. No one protested the interruption because they were curious as well. Obviously he didn't kill it, he was a second year student, but how did he avoid it?  
"I didn't." was Harry's reply.

There was several gasps.

How come the basilisk's gaze did not kill you then?" Arthur asked curiously.  
"It was blinded by Fawkes," the boy slowly answered.

The room looked confused at this. However they could not discount this reply because there was a time period when Fawkes had disappeared from Dumbledore's office.

"How did you defeat Mr. Riddle?" Dumbledore asked, quickly regaining control of the interrogation and shelving the Basilisk for later. He wanted to know what happened to the more dangerous foe.  
"I used the Basilisk's fang to destroy the diary."

"Where did you find the Basilisk's fang?"  
"my arm."

Lily paled.

"How did the fang come to be on your arm?"  
"It wasn't"

"The fang wasn't on your arm?"  
"Yes."

"Where was it then?"  
"In my arm."

"How did it enter your arm?"  
"The basilisk bit me and the fang broke loose."

There was a gasp.

"He was bitten by a Basilisk! He shouldn't be alive right now."

"Could he be lying?"

"Which arm did it bite you?" Dumbledore asked, seeking proof of this claim.  
"The left arm."

They pulled back his sleeve.

No marks, nothing.

"Is this the correct arm?"  
"Yes."

They looked at his unblemished arm again.  
"Check his other arm," James commanded.  
They pulled back his right sleeve, again there was nothing that would indicate a bite.

"Are you hiding any traces of the Basilisk Bite?"  
"No."

"Have you been lying?"  
"No," Harry replied in a perfectly monotone voice. To those in the room, it sounded like he was mocking them.

"How can this be? He's defeating the truth potion!" Sirius shouted.

"We should stop this farce and have him thrown in Azkaban!" Molly cried out.

"This is my son we're talking about," Lily shouted.

"Makes we wonder about the boy's parentage," Molly shot back.

James and Arthur seized their wives before the catfight started.

"Now now Molly, she's the mother of the boy who lived. Not all of her children are as problematic as this one. Think about Fred or George. Harry's just going through a phase," Arthur said, trying to calm his wife down.

"Lily, shh. Calm down. No one is accusing Harry of anything yet," James soothed his distraught wife.

"Should it worry me that those two have been in this phase since they were children?" Molly asked her husband quietly.

Lily nodded at James' words. She continued to bite her fist as she stared at the entranced boy lying on the infirmary cot. Small squeaks could be heard as she struggled not to hyperventilate.

"I suppose so. But Ginny has come out fine in the end, right? We're here to learn the truth about what happened down in the chamber of secrets," Arthur said thoughtfully.

Molly nodded, blankfaced.

"What truth can we get from him? He's telling lies even with Veritaserum in him," Sirius replied catching everyone's attention.

"I'm sure there is a perfectly good explanation for all of this. Perhaps we gave him two drops instead of three," Dumbledore said contemplatively. "Yes, one more drop should do it." He looked at the others. Seeing their nod of permission, he placed a drop on the boy's tongue.

Harry turned paler.

"Where did the basilisk bite you?" Dumbledore asked again.  
"It didn't," was the reply.

The room sighed in relief.

"How did you defeat Riddle?"  
I destroyed his diary with an explosion.

"What spell created the explosion?"  
"It wasn't a spell."

"Did you use Muggle explosives to destroy the diary then?" Sirius asked.  
"No."

"What did you use to destroy the diary then?"  
"A basilisk fang."

They cursed. It seemed like Harry was beginning to resist the truth potion again.

"Where did you get the basilisk fang from?"  
"I pulled it from my arm." That stopped the line of questioning right there.

"One more drop?" Albus asked. Seeing the collective agreement, he placed another drop on the boy's tongue.

Harry didn't turn paler this time; he started to convulse.

"He's been severely poisoned. Call Poppy in here now!" Dumbledore ordered, he looked slightly ashamed.

-o-o-o-o-

_**Obliviate. **_

-o-o-o-o-

Harry woke up. This wasn't the Slytherin dorm room. For one, the ceiling was white. The bed he was on felt hard and bumpy. Did they finally pull him from that crazy world? Maybe he was in the infirmary because he was injured on his return trip! He started to hope.

"Harry, why were you down in the Chamber of Secrets?"

Turning his head in the direction of the voice, Harry was greeted with the sight of Molly, Arthur...Albus and his parents. He didn't know whether he should feel elated or depressed.

"Harry?" Dumbledore asked again, catching his attention.

Harry hesitated as he quickly recalled the previous question. He had an answer but something else came to mind. "Why aren't you using a truth potion?" he asked curiously. This wasn't how he expected an interrogation session to go.".

"Because you haven't done anything wrong so we trust you to tell the truth," Dumbledore reassured.

Harry frowned slightly, as if in thought. In truth, he felt in his gut that Dumbledore was lying about something. He decided to give the adults the benefit of the doubt.

"I went down there to rescue Ginny," he replied, disregarding Fawke's warning for a moment when he used Ginny's favored name. He felt a subtle tendril tap his mind.

'Bloody!' he cursed mentally. Once the probe disappeared, he began to evacuate his thoughts and memories.

"Indeed. So I trust that you encountered a Basilisk as well as a younger form of Voldemort down there?"

"Yes," he replied distantly. Another subtle probe. He didn't need to hide anything so he let it through.

Can you tell us what happened while you were down there?

"No," A strong probe this time, but Harry immediately thought about books that he had read recently. 'The look of dissatisfaction filling Dumbledore's face was worth a second look,' he thought triumphantly.

"Do we have to use a truth potion Mr. Potter?" Dumbledore threatened.

"No," Harry replied. There was a slight tremor of fear in his voice. Who knew what secrets they could pry from him if they used Veritaserum. He wasn't willing to chance it.

"Answer the question then," James pushed.

He was trapped. Resigned, he opened his mouth to tell them. The room suddenly lit up, interrupting him. Fawkes immediately flew over and gazed into his eyes for a moment, as if telling him what to say. His spirit lifted.

"No," Harry replied, trusting in Fawkes to defend him.

Very well then. Dumbledore uncorked the truth potion. Before he could step forward, Fawkes was flying in front of aged wizard, preventing him from approaching the boy.

Dumbledore took a step anyway. That was when Fawkes swooped, striking the vial with his wing and knocking it to the floor.

Everyone stared at the shattered remains of what used to be the truth potion.

Fawkes trilled before swooping over to land on Harry's bed.

With a sweep of his wand, Dumbledore repaired the shattered vial. After another poke and a swish, the puddle of Veritaserum reentered the vial. He recapped the truth potion and turned to Harry.

"It seems that Fawkes is displeased with me at this moment. Will you at least answer this? What happened to Mr. Riddle and his Basilisk."

"Tom is gone. The diary was destroyed somehow. But the Basilisk is still alive."

"Excuse me?" Dumbledore asked in surprise.

"The Basilisk is still alive."

At Dumbledore's nod, James and Sirius left the room.

"Will you also answer this? How did you manage to enter the Chamber of Secrets? Myrtle mentioned that you had visited earlier but were unable to enter."

"..."

And Harry knew immediately that he wanted to keep the Room of Requirement a secret for now. It was Fawke's gaze of approval to do what he did next.

"I-" he paused to think.

"I don't know. I was just wishing really hard to save Ginevra and I suddenly found myself there. I don't think it was apparition because you're not supposed to be able to apparate in Hogwarts." The lie, it was believable. Especially with occlumency backing him up. But from the looks of the three in front of him, he knew they could tell that he was lying. He hung his head in resignation, _how do you get one past two moms and an old guy anyway?_

Before the three could say anything, Fawkes was in the air and circling around Harry, his long tail feathers appearing to make a ring of protection around the boy.

"I do believe Fawkes is telling us that this questioning session is over. It seems you are in no condition to walk, so we will bring some dinner up to you in a bit." With that, Dumbledore left the room with Molly following behind.

Lily gave him a searching look before she too disappeared with the other two.

-o-o-o-o--o-o-o-o--o-o-o-o-

The ministry sent in Aurors with roosters a day later.

After affixing a rope to pull themselves out later, ten brave men slowly marched to their dooms. Dumbledore in the lead. The roosters in the cage that they carried were squawking and flailing as they struggled to escape.

-o-o-o-o-

One of the aurors suddenly froze in place.

"That damn snake! It got Tim!" An auror shouted.

"Why aren't the roosters crowing?!" someone else shouted.

"Fall back!" Dumbledore ordered.

The other 8 fired deadly curses while one of them used magic to whisk the fallen Auror to a safer spot.

Suddenly one of the roosters started crowing. It started the chain reaction that led to an incredible cacophony of noise as all of the other roosters joined in.

The fallen Auror stirred and the Basilisk collapsed.

"Tim! You're alive!" an auror shouted in surprise.

"How?" someone asked.

"I'm not sure. I remember gazing at its eyes before thinking that this was the end," Timothy Woodstew replied.

"But if you're alive..." they looked at the dead snake, particularly its eyes.

-o-o-o-o-

9 Aurors climbed out, grinning at the simplicity of the job. One Headmaster came out a moment later, a contemplative look on his face. He soon smiled and dismissed his thoughts as an old man's fancy

-o-o-o-o-

_Daily Prophet  
March 8, 1992_

_Basilisk Slain_

_Yesterday, following a tip from an anonymous source, the ministry sent Aurors after the basilisk that was responsible for terrorizing Hogwarts this year. All returned with smiles._

_The value of the dead basilisk has not been determined at this time, however it has been estimated that the carcass will be worth at least 3 million galleons. Sales of the potion components are expected to start as early as tomorrow. A significant percentage of the profits will be divided among the ten responsible for bringing down the basilisk. _

_Basilisk hunting is an illegal..._

Harry dropped the copy of today's newspaper that he had been holding...Those jerks! Where was his share of the loot?!

-o-o-o-o-

The news was all over the school. No one knew about his or Ginny's involvement although there were rumors because they were the only two missing students at the time. However, the school was safe once again and classes had resumed their normal schedule.

(Transfiguration with the Slytherins)

"Mr. Potter, where is your wand?"

"I'm sorry professor, I left it somewhere and I can't find it anymore," Harry smoothly replied.

"How unfortunate. However, I find myself unwilling to give you 0's for the rest of the year. It is fortuitous that your parents have come to visit today. I propose that in exchange for a 0 for this class, I shall permit you to use this class time to buy a new wand. Is that acceptable?

At Harry's nod, McGonagall continued, "Well, what are you waiting for Mr. Potter? Take this pass and go find your parents."

Harry left the room. He soon found, after a few inquiries, that his parents were currently with Simon in Hogsmeade.

"Mr. Potter, where are you going?" Professor Sinistra asked as she stepped in front of him, blocking him from the entrance door.

"I'm uh..."

"Don't you know that underaged students are not permitted to leave school premises without a parent's signature?"

"But they're in Hogsmeade."

"I see. I'm afraid that I still cannot allow you to leave. Why did you wish to seek them out?"

"I need to buy a new wand."

Professor Sinistra frowned. "Follow me, I'll go summon your parents," she said after a moment of thought. They soon arrived at an unused floo connection. With a quick spell, the fire roared to life.

"Wait here," she ordered.

Sinistra returned fifteen minutes later. "I'm afraid your parents had already left by the time I arrived Mr. Potter."

Harry stopped tracing the rocks and stood up.

"I suggest you borrow a wand from Filch until you can contact your parents to obtain a better one. I'll let the staff members know in the meantime." Sinistra said as she led Harry towards the caretaker's office.

She left soon after dropping him off.

It didn't take long to find a suitable wand. It wasn't great, but with Filch's constant grumbling, Harry was soon eager to leave.

-o-o-o-o-

Harry struggled to stay awake in class as '3 more months of this,' echoed over and over in his head.

-o-o-o-o--o-o-o-o--o-o-o-o-

That night, Draco pulled opened his curtains while he was laying down to sleep. The blond ignored the resulting shout of surprise as he threw a copy of today's paper onto the bed.

"This was your doing, wasn't it Harry? I wanted to think that it was all a mistake, but I know that it isn't."

Harry opened his mouth to protest.

"Save it Potter. You're just another glory-seeking hound like the rest of your family...aren't you? I have no further reason to associate myself with a traitor. Good night."

Harry was left staring at Draco's curtains. He didn't know what to think, but he knew that he had lost Draco's support.

He closed his curtains again and quickly used a spell to seal them shut. The temporary wand obediently complied.

-o-o-o-o-

Now that Ginny was safe, it was time to fix his combat skills.

The moon shone through the window as he crept towards the Room of Requirements.

He entered with the need for a private training room. Inside, large bookshelves lining the walls were full of spells. In the center was a large dueling ring. What surprised him was the small cafe off to the corner, complete with soft comfy couches. Now why were those there?

After admiring the room, he turned to Ron and Hermione. Or tried to. He smacked his head lightly upon seeing no one behind him. Of course they weren't there. He gave a sigh, he hadn't trained alone before. How was he going to go about this?

-o-o-o-o-

A warm breeze wafted across his hair as he sat under the tree and enjoyed his lunch.

"Potter."

He looked up from his sandwich to see Ginny standing near him.

"I just wanted to say thanks."

"Sure thing Miss Weasley," Harry replied disinterestedly as he leaned forward to take another bite from his sandwich. He froze upon hearing what Ginny said next.

"It's Ginny"

"Pardon?" he asked in surprise.

"Call me Ginny"

"If you call me Harry"

"Okay Harry." the girl replied with a grin. "You know, you're not so bad for a Slytherin."

"I try Gryffindor, I try," he said with a chuckle.

It was the start of a friendship between a Slytherin and a Gryffindor.

-o-o-o-o-

Harry grinned as he turned around and continued on his way for Filch's office.

Behind him were the comatose forms of five Gryffindors that had chosen to attack him one last time before the school year ended. He dearly hoped they woke up soon, the Hogwarts Express wouldn't wait forever.

He started whistling cheerfully, the temporary wand twirling in his hand.

He never did get around to contacting his parents for a new wand. At least there was plenty of time in the summer to get a new one.

-o-o-o-o-

A/N: This is the end of the first book. Every year represents one book. So far, I have three books plotted. You can stop reading here and pretend that Harry leads a happy life after this.

I'm letting you know this because the second book will be different.

For one, I will need to introduce an OC. I know I know, I hate OC's too, but this one is different. Somewhat.

If you feel like taking a crack at who it could be, I leave you with these vague hints:

I've briefly mentioned her before but if you bear with me you'll find that she will be extremely important to the story later.

I promise you though, Harry and the OC will not shack up. And no, it's not because they don't love each other nor does the OC die early.

A/N: Thanks goes to Mike with an excellent comment regarding a redundancy:

Original Line: It was the start of an odd friendship. Could it lead to something more?

When I asked what he meant by exposition, Mike replied that it was natural for people to wonder whether the friendship would lead to something more. I didn't need to emphasize it and destroy the integrity . Well, he explained it better, but I didn't ask him for permission to post the contents of his e-mail.

Revised Line: It was the start of a friendship between a Slytherin and a Gryffindor.

Thanks! I'll watch out for this in the future because I have a habit of adding it in when I'm feeling silly.


	7. Chapter Preview

  
His Next Destiny

Preview!

Without any time to write, and no desire to shove out more story ideas since juggling 7 stories is horrible enough, I leave you these to show you that it's not writer's block that prevented this week's (and maybe next week's) update.

If you feel the need to say something, use a PM if you want to say something to me because when the next chapter is out, it will replace this one. For those without PM, my e-mail addy is at the top of my profile. Seriously though, I hope you don't. Saying good things about a PREVIEW seems rather stupid to me.

-o-o-o-o-

He found them standing in the Quidditch field...

"Unbelievable!" Neville shouted in disbelief. James and Lily were also gaping in shock.

"Took you long enough. Come on, let's get started," Simon said, shooting a smug look to the other three. "This is Sirius' broom," He said, holding up a broom for Harry to use. Harry accepted it without fanfare.

"Now Harry, I know it's been a while since you've been on a-" James began before there was a large rush of wind as Harry suddenly took off.

Zooom

"Woohoo!" Harry shouted in excitement as performed a roll at full speed. The Nimbus 2000 was a step down from his Firebolt, but he had missed the feeling of flying.

Everyone stopped watching Harry fly around in large circles. It didn't seem like he was in danger of falling anytime soon.

"I suppose I'm the scorekeeper again?" Lily asked with a small smile. Harry's excitement seemed to be catching.

"Lily dear, when you finally decide to ride a broom, please let me know," James replied with a playful wink.

She smacked him lightly, reprimanding him for his crude behavior in front of the children.

Overhead, Harry continued to fly.

-o-o-o-o-

It's the Summer of Harry's Third Year. Things are bound to get better right?

Revisions of previous chapters are also in progress.


End file.
